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«r 


MAINWARING 


BY 

MAURICE HEWLETT 

Author of “The Forest Lovers,” 
“Love and Lucy,” etc. 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
1920 

2 » 



Copyright, 1920 , 

By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. 



VAIL* BALLOU COMPANY 

BINGHAMTON ANO NEW VQRK 


SEP 28 1920 
©CU601403 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I Squab Mainwaring 1 

II Report from Trafalgar Square .... 17 

III Balm of Heroes 23 

IV The Strike at Culgaith 41 

V The Petition and the Return .... 64 

VI In and Out of the House 79 

VII The Free Lancer 91 

VIII Montagu Square 104 

IX After Dinner 118 

X Lady Whitehaven in Woe 129 

XI Lizzy in Print 143 

XII Under the Blossom 154 

XIII Mainwaring and Sir John 166 

XIV Lizzy Bids Me Go 178 

XV Reflections of a Banished Lover . . . 186 

XVI Mainwaring in the Box 195 

XVII The Surprise Party 209 

XVIII Cups 228 

XIX Climax 240 

XX Cry from Cavendish Square 246 

XXI Sick-Bed 259 

XXII Head Down 269 

XXIII The Spring 278 

XXIV Haven 291 




MAINWARING 


MAINWARING 


i 

SQUAB MAIN WARIN' G 

T HEBE’S nothing for it but to begin at the 
beginning. I don’t mean of Main waring 
himself, for nobody knows his beginning now 
that he himself can’t tell it — I mean rather the 
beginning of myself and himself — which was at 
Marseilles in the ’seventies. The history of a 
man — I know that very well — can’t be rounded 
up into a tale in the artist’s sense. Nature 
won ’t have anything to say to your antithetical 
light and shade, your balance and chiaroscuro 
and climax. Form, which all the poets talk of 
and none of them understand, is no concern of 
Nature’s, occupied with her enormous affair 
of production, absorption and reproduction. 
Things happen in life because other things have 
already happened. You souse into a puddle 
because you have tripped over a stone; you 
tripped over a stone because you were looking 
1 


2 


MAIN WARING 


at Thompson’s wife. All is predetermined, but 
fortuitously, by the Fairies of gestation and 
birth. So Main waring burned his way through 
the England and London of the last generation 
because a Doctor Benjamin and Maria his wife 
were what they were, and did what they did — 
I never knew them, nor can guess at their com- 
merce — in far-off Ballymena, or because re- 
moter Mainwarings and their obscurer Marias, 
or perhaps Bridgets, burned and fused in their 
loves. Heredity! Doom! Is that all? Is it 
so simple? And yet Mainwaring — my Main- 
waring, England’s (since she adopted him) 
Richard Denzil Blaise Mainwaring — was a 
genius, and could drive men like sheep down 
steep places into the sea, whereas Dr. Benjamin 
his father drove nothing but a gig, and drove 
that so badly when drunk one foggy day that 
he drove it into a stone wall, overturned it and 
broke his neck. Yet mark: it was because of 
that untimely indiscretion of his that Main- 
waring himself went to Marseilles, saw me 
there, and involved me in his dangerously heady 
fortunes. It was because of that — but no more 
philosophy. I could go on for ever — and it is a 
sign of age. 

He had perhaps been there a year when I 


SQUAB M AIN W AKIN G 3 

first went there, meaning to spend a few days in 
a January sun as fierce as ours of June, and in 
leisurely, happy contemplation of all the jolly 
things I might do next. My old uncle Mom- 
pesson, the Dean of St. Neot’s, had died and left 
me five hundred a year, very unexpectedly. 
It chimed in so happily with my marked dis- 
taste for any kind of regular work that together 
they rang down the curtain on my acts in the 
Temple. I had headed due south like a be- 
lated swallow, only stopping at Marseilles be- 
cause there were feo many roads out of it. The 
Messageries Maritimes would take me to 
Madeira, to Morocco, to Algiers, to Genoa, 
Naples, Messina, Smyrna, Constantinople, and 
I was ready for all of them. Meantime I loved 
the smell of oranges, the dust and glare, the 
shipping and Arabs of the Cannebiere, so there 
I stayed, smoking and drinking coffee and read- 
ing the novels of Alphonse Daudet, through a 
more splendid January month than I had ever 
dreamed of. 

It was on the Cannebiere that Mainwaring 
stalked into my notice. I saw him at once, he 
riveted my eyes; I saw him again at the same 
hour of the next morning; after that I looked 
for him and scarcely ever missed him. A tall, 


4 


MAIN W ARIN Gr 


very black-and-white, gaunt, starved and dis- 
traught young man, outrageously thin, with 
cheek-bones like knives and elbows like hedge- 
stakes, in a thin broadcloth frock, closely but- 
toned, withered black trousers, and a hat, and 
a pair of boots which, I give my word, were for 
tears. Nobody but a Frenchman — you will say, 
a stage Frenchman — could have worn them as 
he did, with a flourish, and a kind of bitter 
gaiety; but I confess that I admired the gal- 
lantry, done, as it must have been, on a gnaw- 
ing stomach and through aching eyeballs. If 
it was cold — and it can be bitter-cold in Mar- 
seilles — he wore a double-breasted brown over- 
coat, far too thin — which had the odd effect of 
making him look less clad, and more blackly 
clad than ever. I don’t pretend to explain that 
— but I state it. Atop of all that I should like 
to add that I never believed him a Frenchman. 
I could hardly tell you why, except it may have 
been that in his rare detached moments I seemed 
to see that quite unwarranted air of being a 
lord of the earth, free to range above it, on it 
and below it, which is the badge of my own 
nation. But his detached moments were few. 
He was nearly always absorbed in his thought, 


SQUAB M AIN W ARIN G 5 

his head either sunk to his breast or uplifted, 
convening with the blue sky ; but when, as often 
happened, he tilted into another wayfarer — to 
see his bow, to see the flourish of his deplorable 
hat was to be transported to the great days of 
France, when the Comte de Guiche paid his 
court to Madame de Brissac, or Monsieur made 
way for her adorable friend and critic. That 
was French enough — and yet, he could not be a 
Frenchman. He was not handsome ; he stooped 
his head, he was of an unwholesome pallor, his 
jaw was slightly twisted — but there was an air 
of nobility about him, and a wrung and rather 
terrible seriousness, all the more arresting be- 
cause, as I believe, it was due to hunger. He 
wore a thin black beard, a French student’s 
beard, which fluttered in the least breeze. Un- 
der that it was easy to see that his mouth was 
well-shaped, though he had a trick of pressing 
the lips hard over the teeth which was ugly. 
His chin jutted forward like the cutwater of a 
destroyer. His eyes, as I found when I came 
to be intimate with him, were remarkable — of 
a deep and steady gray which had the power of 
dilation and the quality of fire to a very high 
degree. It was impossible not to believe him 


6 


MAIN WARING 


when those stern eyes, absorbing yon, enforced 
the tale. They were his greatest asset in this 
world of gullible men and too kind women. 

Generally he stalked alone, but rarely a 
friend, a French gentleman of dapper appear- 
ance and comfortable rotundity, was with him. 
On such occasions Mainwaring talked vehe- 
mently, in fierce and urgent whispers, enforc- 
ing his impetuous, stabbing eloquence with 
slaps of the palm; or standing still in mid- 
pavement, his friend firmly gripped by the lapel, 
he would raise his bony free hand higher and 
higher towards Heaven, his whole person strain- 
ing up after it, as if the scarecrow he was were 
on the point of flight upon the wings of his 
words. His friend, too polite to reveal the em- 
barrassment he was suffering, but anxious to 
end it, used to agree with him quickly. “En 
effet,” I have heard him say more than once or 
twice, and at frequent intervals, “tout est dit ” 
— which it never was — but “On nous ecoute f> 
underlay whatever he may have said — and that 
was true, and no wonder at all. I was never 
fortunate enough to be one of his overhearers, 
but was sufficiently filled with his fiery flow to 
be indifferent to its purport. It poured forth 
of him like a lava-stream, and was punctuated, 


SQUAB MAINWARING 7 

as thVt is, by the frequent fling-up of some great 
rock of oratory, some bursting proof, some 
pounding, shattering conclusion. I supposed 
it must be politics. Nothing stirs an English- 
man to the very deeps — in those days I assumed 
his Englishry. I was right about his matter, 
anyhow. Politics it was. He had an infallible 
means of saving the world for ever on the tip of 
his tongue, and spilling over. 

My interest grew fast and carried me to 
lengths. It came to this, that I lay in wait for 
him, like a beast of chase, to catch him at a meal. 
Noon was the consecrated hour in Marseilles, 
but the feeding-grounds were innumerable, and 
it took time. I quested far and wide — begin- 
ning the cremeries and enlarging into more 
vinous and less savoury dens. He was a shy 
bird — there was no finding him. And then one 
afternoon I almost fell over his shocking boots, 
at the hour of absinthe. There he was, his 
opalescent bane beside him, with folded arms 
and a frown upon him, stretched in the declining 
sun of the Cannebiere. With a murmur and 
touch of the hat, which he just acknowledged, 
I sat at his table and ordered my poison. I 
had the Petit Marseillais in my hand, and pres- 


8 


M AIN W ARIN Gr 


ently showed him a paragraph of home news, 
taking my courage in both hands. 

“ This is how they feed us exiles, sir,” I said. 
He withdrew himself from his vision and 
knitted his brows over the paragraph. It had 
been to the effect that “Sir Bentivoglio, pre- 
mier ministre d’ Angleterre ” — this was their 
shot at our Bight Hon. Isaac Bentivoglio, exotic 
leader to the Tory party at that time — that Sir 
Bentivoglio had received a deputation of “mer- 
chants of the highest consideration in London” 
and promised them, with a good deal of high- 
sounding phrases, a Boyal Commission about 
something or other. Its brazen emptiness still 
adhered to it. 

Mainwaring read, and nodded once or twice 
as he did so. Then he returned me the paper 
with a fine air of detachment. “I despise um,” 
he said — and I knew his nation — “as you de- 
spise the rat in your bread-pan.” He let it 
go at that, but then, warming to his own meta- 
phor, “If I could fasten me teeth fairly in him, 
I’d shake him like the Ghetto rat he is and 
fling him out to a Brixton ash-bin. Then let 
them see the ticks of rhetoric stream off him to 
find warmer quarters.” 

Once launched, he held on to this vein for 


SQUAB MAIN WARING 9 

half-an-hour, pursuing it in all its ramifica- 
tions; and, if you’ll believe me, never once let 
go of his metaphor. Bentivoglio was a Ghetto 
rat to the end, and the flowers of rhetoric which 
he threw up were all oriental and rodent. It 
was really a fine feat, and enabled me to under- 
stand how literary the man was. His speech 
was exactly what Sir Walter Scott calls * 4 arti- 
ficial and combined narrative.” The end was 
laid in the beginning, the climax foreseen, the 
swift descent prepared for; but something 
more genuine lay behind, whether sheer literary 
inspiration or strong conviction I was not then 
able to say. I know v^ry well which it was, 
now. 

We parted on very good terms, not without 
an understanding that we were to meet again. 
Indeed, he asked me to dinner for a certain day 
fixed, at a certain restaurant specified. So 
good a house was that that I may have betrayed 
surprise — to him, I mean, preternaturally sharp 
as his poverty had made him. He took it very 
easily. “Have no fear,” he said; “they pay 
me on the 15th of the month. It’s a day you 
may be sure of.” I laughed it off, naturally, 
but found out afterwards how truly he had 
spoken. He received £60 a year as teacher of 


10 


M AIN W ARIN Gr 


English in a School of Languages — that and 
some very occasional and precarious journalism 
kept body and soul together. 

In the course of that dinner, at the Bon 
Provengal, he discovered to me the length and 
depth of his ambition. It was simply, as we 
say now, to make good ; but I did not get then, 
and it was many years before I could get, a full 
view of the outrageous, exorbitant state of be- 
ing which he would have allowed to be 
“good.” As he put it at the time, it was, “I 
have got it in me, d’ye see. There ’s a furnace 
roaring in me guts. Let it out then and lick the 
grease off the skins of the English. They are 
no countrymen of mine, why should I be 
squeamish?” 

“You think of politics?” I enquired. 
“Home Rule, I suppose?” But he tossed his 
hair back. 

“No such thing. Home Rule, my dear sir? 
Vestryman’s work. I shall stand for an Eng- 
lish constituency, and root myself in the fat 
English loam. Wait till I have my roots well 
in, and see if I heave up the soil. Labour, my 
friend, is the ticket. There’s dirty weather 
brewing in your island. Find a labourer who 
knows what he is talking about, has a grudge, 


SQUAB M AIN W AKIN G 11 

and a fire in his gnts, and yon may expect a con- 
flagration. I haven’t starved for five-and- 
twenty years without a cud of gall. I have it 
in me white as vitriol and as bitter. 9 ’ 

“Labour” had not then the significance it 
has now. It now means an organized political 
force, but it had no such implication in the 
seventies. I took it from him, therefore, as a 
sporting proposal, very light-heartedly. “We 
shall weather it, I daresay,” I said; and he 
gloomed. 

“There’ll be dirty weather,” he said, “when 
I’ve warmed to the work.” After a pause he 
burst out: “How’s this for a tool in your hand? 
When they leave their middens and mixens, 
their rat-haunted hovels, and see the rich in 
Park Lane, and the pretty rich in Wimbledon 
and Hampstead? See them with eyes washed 
out in bitter gall? There’s a few of you, they 
will say, and begod there’s millions of us — 
starving, stewing, swarming like maggots in an 
old cheese. Come now, will you fight it out — 
or will you hand over? What then, my 
friend?” 

He seemed to me like a man who knew what 
he could do. I didn’t credit him with any 
scruples — yet I sheltered me behind the Brit- 


12 


MAINWARINGr 


ish character. These things never have come 
off since the time of Richard the Second. Not 
a high philosophy, I own; the philosophy, in- 
deed, ascribed to the ostrich. But it has served 
us for six hundred years. 

He mellowed as the Yolnay began to work, 
faced ways and means, warmed to the idea that 
journalism might get him out of his ushership 
— which he said stripped the skin off him and 
rubbed salt into the raw flesh. Even that had 
its graces, he would allow. i 4 Every now and 
then I get one of ’em by the ankle and sweep 
the room out with him,” he said. “And after 
all, I love a fight. ’ 7 

With all has copiousness — and he never 
stopped talking, except to bolt his food or to 
drink — I noted then as characteristic of him, 
which has been more than confirmed since, that 
all his zest was for the future; that the past 
indeed did not really exist for him. I was told 
nothing — I never learned anything but the bare 
bones — of his birth and upbringing. He hardly 
spoke of Ireland, and when of Irishmen it was 
with the utmost scorn. “The black Irish” they 
were for him. He had been educated — that was 
obvious: he had classics, languages, history, 
literature. He knew the byways too: he knew 


SQUAB M AIN W AKIN G 13 

eighteenth^century poetry extremely well — 
much better than I, who .professed poetry. 
But he cared nothing for his scholarship. 
He had got it- — and the sources were there- 
fore dried up. Facts then were entirely 
to seek in Mainwaring’s conversation, though 
I am quite sure that his prospective ac- 
tions were facts to himself. I never met a man 
so sure of himself as he was. He was so sure 
that he was not at all in a hurry. Gnawing his 
fingers, or dipping his crusts, he was content to 
starve in exile, with his hollow eyes fixed firmly 
upon the years to come. So he was fated, 
though I didn’t know it, to mew his squabhood 
out for another four years. How old was he 
at this time? Twenty-eight to thirty, I put it. 

We parted, after that first dinner of ours, the 
best of friends, to all appearance, though I did 
not then flatter myself — nor have I ever — that 
I was more than a convenience to Mainwaring: 
a sort of washpot. Yet it was he who dated our 
next meeting; and named the place. As for 
me, I was glad of his company, and admit I 
was interested in him. He had plain marks 
of genius — complete self-absorption, and that 
quiescence under the ravages of the inner and 


14 


MAINWARINGr 


more remote ego which only geniuses have. 
[With all the rest of us the citizen who sits in 
the parlour-window holds the latchkey. If he 
occasionally leaves it about and suffers the loss 
of it, he gets it back again. Not so with Main- 
waring. There was, apparently, no citizen- 
lodger — or perhaps there was no parlour-win- 
dow. He was from within outwards a non- 
moral being. His good pleasure was his law. 
The policeman was simply fate. 

I had two or three funny instances of that, in 
the course of our dinners together. It had been 
arranged, I ought to say, that we dined each 
other in turn. The host of the turn chose the 
eating-house, ordered the meal, and naturally 
paid for it. All went well at first; but as the 
month waned Mainwaring’s purse emptied — 
while his will to feast remained as imperative 
as ever. Then came the inevitable. How was 
I to guess that he had not a stiver to his name? 
We had, I recollect, a bouillabaisse, soubise 
cutlets, ortolans, and two bottles of Hermitage 
which must have cost eighteen francs apiece at 
the least. Brandy of 1834 with our coffee. 
We sat late, and he talked all the time with a 
red-hot, biting gaiety quite impossible to re- 
produce. It was the kind of wild mockery a 


SQUAB MAIN WARING 15 

wit might have played with the night before his 
execution. Then came the hats and sticks — 
and the folded bill on a salver. 

Main waring didn’t touch it, but stared at it, 
poking his head forward, as if he saw something 
dead — say, John the Baptist’s head — on the 
charger, and expected to smell the taint. That 
may have lasted sixty seconds, and then he 
plunged his hands into his trouser-pockets 
(which were straight-cut and high under his 
waistcoat, tossed back his shock of black hair 
with a great gesture of scorn, and strode out of 
the place like Irving in The Corsican Brothers . 
I admit that I paid the waiter, and even paid 
him again, when Mainwaring repeated the gran ’ 
rifiuto. But when, once more, he was under the 
same tragic necessity he funked it, and asked 
me to lend him the money. I said, when I had 
settled up for him, that I had wondered whether 
he would use his short way a third time, and he 
looked at me like a soul in grief. “M y dear, 
don’t ask it of me. It would involve killing 
the waiter.” “Killing him? Why killing 
him?” “Me dear friend, he would insult me, 
and I should be bound to take notice. Observe 
this as an elementary rule of public life, that 
your opening pitch rules the day. If you be- 


16 


MAINWAKING 


gin with a scream, you must end with a yell. 
If you stand up against tyranny, you must have 
the tyrant’s head on a pike before you go home 
to bed. To that rule there’s no exception — or 
none for me, at any rate. No, no. That place 
is shut to me.” 

Such was the callow Mainwaring, mewing his 
youth in France, with his far, angry sight fixed 
upon the singing-birds in English woodlands. 
I left him in Marseilles and went eastward in 
a Messageries boat. I heard nothing more of 
him for five years; and then there he was, up 
to the neck in the thing. You shall have it as 
it came to me in Allenby’s letter. 


A 


II 


REPORT EROM TRAFALGAR SQUARE 

LLENBY was a junior in those days, with 



a fair Chancery practice which would 


have been fairer if he had not had a weakness 
for journalism of the lighter kind, and for the 
gadding and gaping at side-shows which play 
catchball with the profession. I had been in 
chambers with him five years before, and he 
fnow wrote to me about a business in which we 
had both been then concerned. I omit all that 
fas unimportant, but he wound up with a brisk 
description of the London news which we shall 
want. His letter, I ought to have said, had been 
hunting me since June and only ran me to 
ground in October. 

“ Great doings here on May-day,’ ’ he wrote: 
“red flag, bloody pikes, broken heads, reign of 
terror, but that of Saturn in full view, we under- 
stand. 'The out-of-works of last winter were 
really responsible : they sowed, but the Trade 
Unions watered. There ’s no doubt of it. ... I 
was out and about, you will readily believe, and 


17 


18 


MAINWARIN Gr 


saw it all rather well from the steps of the Na- 
tional Gallery, where, at need, I was prepared to 
protect the mild-eyed Madonnas tending their 
babes within, and (if looting were to become 
general) to have a ready hand for the little 
Van Eyck of What-do-you-call-him and his teem- 
ing wife which we both admire. . . . There was 
an enormous crowd swaying like a tide at the 
turn round a platform at the feet of Nelson. 
On that rostrum I made out by his superb ges- 
tures Ferdinand, of course, the Quixotic Ferdi- 
nant ; with him Bill Birks, M.P., in a tall bowler : 
he made a good Sancho till he lost his temper. 
But the great man was a new man, at least to 
me ; a black-headed, black-bearded cadaver 
called Mainwaring, who figured afterwards on 
the charge-sheet as Richard Denzil Blaise 
Mainwaring, “of no occupation . ’ 9 Blaise is 
good, but Blazes were better. He is an anar- 
chist with a sense of humour, and therefore 
should go far; but at present he won’t go any 
further than Wormwood Scrubs. He has all 
the arts of riot at his fingertips, speaks with a 
steady flow, a kind of maddening monotony, vit- 
riol out of a feed-pipe. The effect is that of the 
Moorish tom-tom, to stir the blood to boiling, or 
to give you and internal itch. You have to 


FROM TRAFALGAR SQUARE 19 

scratch or rave — and, by George, sir, yon do 
scratch. It was he who brought on the fight- 
ing, for fighting there was. Ferdinand got a 
raw sconce, Bill Birks six months. 

“It came about like this. While Mainwar- 
ing was driving it in, steadily, monotonously, 
inevitably — but good matter, you know, coher- 
ent, cogent, syntactical matter; very French 
matter, however; much about the “ right’ ’ to 
work and nothing at all about the duty of doing 
it decently — the police were forming a line 
across the Square, trying to push the mob north 
and south, and by all means to head them off 
Cockspur Street and the way to the clubs. 
Some of them got up Pall Mall afterwards — 
but I didn’t see that part. Mainwaring sees 
their game, but keeps up his dead-level tom- 
tom business until he judges the moment come. 
His crescendo begins, his voice rises to a wail, 
to a long howling like wolves at sundown ; then 
he is transformed ; he tosses back his head ; his 
long forelock flies up like sea-weed on the crest 
of a wind-blown wave. “To Hell with the 
peelers!” — that gave me his nation — came like 
a great foghorn; and he jumped off the plat- 
form. 

“Then chaos and old night. Mainwaring is 


20 


MAIN WARING 


a tall man, and I could see him, at work, swim- 
ming rather than hitting out, forging a way for 
himself towards the steps, with a very nasty- 
looking, evidently organized band of followers. 
Marry, here was miching mallecho, but I give 
you my word that what followed his conquest of 
the steps was sheer fun. He and his lot, hav- 
ing turned the position, charged the police from 
behind. “Helmets, my lads,” I heard from 
him, and have sworn to it in Bow Street and 
at the Bailey, where he got six months. 

“It is the fact that they dishelmed a round 
dozen of our bobbies. They tipped the helmets 
forward from behind and then tossed them into 
the air. The crowd in front caught the idea. 
The air seemed thick with helmets, bandied 
about like footballs — or a snowstorm in Brob- 
dingnag. Every on$. but the police en j oyed him- 
self, and personally I don’t doubt th&t Main- 
waring saved us from a good deal of shop-loot- 
ing or even bloodshed. But the police got 
cross and used their truncheons; then one or 
two were pulled down and rather badly mauled. 
Mainwaring himself — I saw him — unhorsed a 
mounted man, and got up himself. That little 
vanity was his ruin. They nabbed him easily. 


FROM TRAFALGAR SQUARE 21 

The Life Guards did the rest. But a wag, don't 
you think? 

“He defended himself, both before Sir John 
and afterwards at the Old Bailey. Very well, 
too — but he was savage and feared not God, nor 
man either. You easily forgive the first, but 
not the second. That put the jury's back up. 
If he had excused the thing as a joke, which in- 
deed it was, as funny a thing as I ever saw, 
he might have got off — but he didn't. He was 
solemn and savage, like a serious cannibal at a 
feast. He made a mess of it, in fact. Now he's 
in chokey, thinking it over: a made man if he 
sticks to it. Don't you wish you had been 
there? ..." 

There was more, but that was more than 
/enough. I was young enough in those days to 
like mischief. It meant movement, anyhow. 
One's great fear was stagnancy. And of course 
I remembered Mainwaring as the hungry young 
pion of Marseilles whose tossing up of his fore- 
lock, as Allenby described it, had so often solved 
the difficulties arising out of a dinner eaten and 
an empty pocket. Looking back upon him as 
he then was I had no trouble in seeing him a 
candidate for tribunitial powers. Here he was, 


22 


MAINWARING 


then, arrived. I wrote to him in his prison, 
recalling myself to his mind, and our feasts and 
speculations in the little eating-houses of the 
Cannebiere; but I had no answer. However, 
not long afterwards — in the ensuing spring, I 
believe — I met him in Venice. 


in 


BALM OF HEKOES 

V ENICE is a first-rate meeting-place for 
acquaintance, because there is nothing 
whatever to do but to go on being acquainted. 
The nights are soft ; nobody dreams of going to 
bed. Florio’s one evening, Quadri’s the next: 
you talk and talk and talk. The mornings you 
have to yourself; the afternoons you use for 
sleep and tea-drinking. Before dinner you can- 
ter in the Lido — and all the time you talk and 
go on being acquainted. 

It was there that I met again the hero of 
Trafalgar Square in the not at all surprising 
company of Lady Whitehaven. But by that 
time I knew enough of her not to be surprised. 
You make a row, you get a broken pate, you go 
to jail. If it’s politics you are somebody. If 
you are somebody you are drawn into Lady 
Whitehaven’s {were, alas! That generous 
pretty woman is no more) hospitable net. 
Here then was Mainwaring, swimming with the 
best— Lord Gerald Gorges among them, on his 

23 


24 


MAINWARING 


way to his duties in Rome — and bullying his 
captor — which she adored. Lord Whitehaven 
himself was the first of the party I saw, Lord 
Whitehaven himself, with his hat on one side of 
his head, and his tilted white moustaches, look- 
ing, as ever, like a General in an Offenbach 
opera-comique ; permanently satisfied with him- 
self and the universe. He hailed me by saying 
that he thought I had been dead, and adding, 
‘ 1 Sorry — of course it was your uncle . ’ 9 He told 
me, “I’ve got the Zenobia off the mole. We’ve 
been nosing about in the Greek islands. Ever 
see Santorin? Worth it, I assure you. It’s so 
hot there that they harvest their grapes by 
moonlight. You can light a match by holding 
it to one of the rocks.” 

I asked him whom he had on board. Her 
ladyship, he said, and a convoy of lions : 
Gerald Gorges, Llanfrechfa, Miss Blint, a 
poetess and hanger-on whom I recollected, old 
Windover. That was all. And where did he 
come in? At meal-time, he said, and at the 
wings; “ Thank God, I’ve done with women! 
Now I can enjoy my food, and look on. It is 
amusing me a good deal.” His rogue’s eyes 
— blue as nemophilas, but rogue’s eyes for all 


BALM OF HEROES 25 

that — twinkled. Then malice lit a little fire in 
them. 

“By George, I forgot him altogether. We 
have Mainwaring with us, the very last lion 
littered. My dear chap, you must know Main- 
waring. He’s a snorter.’ ’ 

I laughed. “Oh, but I do know him. I knew 
him years ago, when he snorted in a whisper.” 

“He snorts through a speaking-trumpet now, 
my boy,” said the lord. “Whether he means 
it or not I can’t say. My mind is open. But 
there ’s no doubt of one thing that he means. ’ ’ 

I asked him what he thought. He said, “I 
fancy Mainwaring is abroad with an oyster- 
knife. Of course he may be a Saviour of So- 
ciety, and all that — as well — but I doubt it. ’ ’ 

I said that he struck me as having a grudge 
against the world at large, and that he had some 
reasons for it. 

“He has the cheek of the devil, anyhow,” 
Lord Whitehaven said. “My wife likes him — 
that’s in his favour, I suppose.” 

“He’ll certainly take it so,” I answered him 
— “And make it so,” his lordship added. 

It appeared that the whole party was on the 
lagoon somewhere, and Lord Whitehaven had 


26 


MAIN WARING 


a free hand for the day. We lunched together, 
and afterwards I met his company on the 
piazza. There again, then, was Main waring — 
in a loose grey suit, with an open-throated col- 
lar and red tie. Bareheaded, club-bearded, 
still horribly thin, with a smoulder of fire in his 
hollow eyes — the perfect bomb-thrower of fic- 
tion. I must say that in spite of all that — or 
because of it — he held his own with complete 
indifference to the high company in which he 
found himself ; and having the wit to be entirely 
himself, was easily the most significant mem- 
ber of the party. Lord Gerald Gorges, 'that 
beautiful young man, the perfection of whose » 
clothes alone might have intimidated an out- 
sider, looked for once what he really was — a 
handsome oaf. Mainwaring had resolved him 
to that. He was sulky and speechless. As for 
Lord Llanfrechfa, nothing could have made him 
look less than a gentleman ; but he looked such a 
very ordinary gentleman that nobody need 
notice him. There was no question of Lady 
Whitehaven’s preoccupation. One saw that in 
a moment. 

A word about that charming, unhappy, 
sweet creature — the kindest woman I ever knew 


BALM OF HEROES 


27 


in my life — at that moment upon the knife-edge 
of her career, just about to begin her slide 
downwards to heart-break and despair. Her 
more flaming sister Leven, Duchess and terma- 
gant, has put her in the shade with the vulgar, 
but never, never with the discerning. The 
Duchess was a peony to an iris in her regard, 
a peacock to a silver pheasant. But she was a 
Duchess who could romp like a milkmaid — 
and that’s enough for the public. But Lady 
Whitehaven was a delicate-looking blonde, with 
the most enchanting air of naivete upon her 
that I have ever seen in a woman. It was no 
less enchanting for being a deliberate work of 
art. Of course nobody was ever so innocent as 
Lady Whitehaven looked. She was by no 
means what she appeared, neither delicate (but 
on the contrary, of perfect health), nor naive. 
But she had not been given Greuze eyes for 
nothing, and like all women of the world she 
had made it her early business to find out what 
suited her. She was naive to perfection, just 
as she was always perfectly dressed; and with 
those two keen and dangerous weapons, having 
married Whitehaven and a sufficiency of 
means, she set out upon her career of breaking 
hearts. Poor soul, finally she broke her own. 


28 


MAIN WARING 


Perhaps she was not beautiful — no, as Main- 
waring justly and bluntly said to me by-and-by, 
she certainly wasn’t; but she was delicately 
pretty, really a lovely woman — like a tea-rose — 
and with her emotions very near the surface, 
her sensibilities enfolding them like a flower- 
sheath, she was as responsive to the play of 
character as a taut wire. She thrilled to a 
touch, almost to a breath. 

One word upon the queer couple she made 
with Whitehaven. They had had children, but 
were not likely to have any more ; yet they were 
excellent together. They observed a strict, 
very friendly neutrality, each conducting his 
own affairs and ignoring those of his neighbour. 
Whitehaven was never outrageous, except now 
and then in what he was pleased to say, and 
though she went pretty close to the edge, I think 
he knew to a horse-hair’s breadth what it 
amounted to. He might — he did — say that he 
couldn’t afford to walk with her for fear of be- 
ing mistaken for some one else — but he knew, 
bless you ! A squeeze of the hand, a note, a kiss 
in a dusky garden — certainly he believed in no 
more than that. Nor do I — either before 
Mainwaring’s day, before Gerald Gorges’ day, 
or since. But Mainwaring knew nothing 


BALM OF HEROES 


29 


about that. The elements of comedy were al- 
ready there. Mainwaring absorbed in the lady, 
the lady no longer absorbed in Mainwaring, if 
she ever had been — but dangerously interested 
in the young lord. 

Well, we met on the Piazza, and I saluted 
Lady Whitehaven as she deserved. She sa- 
luted me, on the other hand, as, on the whole, 
I did not deserve — for she and her lord were old 
friends of my family’s and entitled to my at- 
tentions. 4 4 This is nice. It is exactly what I 
have been saying I wanted. How do you man- 
age to be so apropos? Of course you know all 
of us.” She named them: 4 4 Lord Gerald 
Gorges” — a who-the-devil nod from him. We 
had never met — 4 4 Lord and Lady Wind- 
over, Lord Llanfrechfa, Miss Blint. Oh, 
and Mr. Mainwaring — You must know each 
other. ’ ’ 

4 4 It so happens that we do,” I said, 4 4 though 
Mr. Mainwaring looks as if he didn’t believe it.” 
Mainwaring, who had been gazing at the pigeons 
about the roots of the Campanile, now scowled 
at me — then laughed (like a tombstone) and 
shook hands. 

4 4 You are a wraith from the past,” he said. 
4 4 You remind me of myself, and make me think 


30 


MAIN WARING 


I’m as hungry as I always was then. But I’ve 
been in gaol since I saw you — ” 

“And are evidently still there,’ ’ I put in, and 
made Lady Whitehaven blush. She laughed too 
— chiefly, I think, because Mainwaring opened 
his mouth and said nothing. He didn’t know 
what the deuce I meant, and that made him 
cross. 

“Ah, if you’re laughing at me — Well, next 
time I go to gaol, it’s not you I’ll ask to bail 
me out.” 

I went on. “If I were in the gaol in which 
you are, I’m hanged if I’d look for bail,” and 
then he caught me up. 

“My service is perfect freedom, my dear 
man,” he said. “Like a prisoner of war, I am 
learning languages.” 

“Not from me, Mr. Mainwaring,” she said. 
“You know too many for me.” 

“Madam, I forget them all when I hear 
yours,” he said. Lord Gerald had strolled 
away, feeling that that was no place for him; 
but she called him back by Miss Blint, and we 
all sat down, joining our tables into one. 

I had no opportunity for a day or two for a 
talk apart with Mainwaring. So far as I saw 


BALM OF HEROES 


31 


his people at all it was in the piazza at night*. 
They slept on the yacht and never showed np in 
Venice till dinner-time. It was plain that her 
ladyship had her work cut out for her to keep 
Gerald Gorges up to the mark and at the same 
time hold Mainwaring at a distance from it. 
Master Gerald was a spoilt child of fortune. 
The son of a Duke, and the brother of one, with 
a private fortune derived from his mother, with 
his years and his good looks, there ’s no wonder 
if he set a value on himself, and if it was a high 
figure. He was tall, thin, dark, hawk-nosed, 
high-sniffing; clean-shaven, with a beautifully- 
cut mouth and chin. As for his eyes, fringed 
by long black lashes which would have set up a 
reigning beauty, I assure you they were the 
colour of sapphires. It is a fact that Venetian 
women used to follow him about, and that one 
heard, “Come e hello — hello!” in whispers by 
no means too soft for him to hear. He could 
not but be self-conscious, and of course he was. 
I don’t know that he had a mind, I don’t know 
that he had any particular reason for being 
alive. I am not sure even that he was really 
alive. He rarely spoke, he never seemed to 
like anything. He was one of those people you 
describe by negatives — except in the matter of 


32 


MAINWARING 


Ms looks. They had pushed him into diplo- 
macy, and he was on his way, to Rome : a pretty 
good beginning for him, too. Now, Lady 
Whitehaven never could resist a pretty fellow, 
even if he was stuffed with sawdust, and obvi- 
ously as cold as a dead fish. She was not then 
in love with him — though on the point of be- 
ing so. Directly Mainwaring was out of the 
way, that happened; for the Whitehavens left 
the yacht to go round to Naples and accom- 
panied the lordling to Rome. 

Meantime Mainwaring was not out of the 
way, and, as Wordsworth said, did not intend. 
His position, I take it, was the old schoolboy 
one of “findings and keepings.” Lady White- 
haven, you will say, had picked him up. 
Mainwaring did not think so. He considered 
her advance as a tribute to worth, and might 
perhaps have gone so far as to say (if pressed) 
that really he had picked her up. I never saw 
in any man so cool an assumption of droit de 
seigneur. He attached her to his person, and 
kept her there. If he chose to be silent, she 
had to do the talking, and he answered or not, 
as suited. He was never rude to her, but no 
courtier. He did not petition for wraps to 


BALM OF HEROES 


33 


carry, but held out his hand for them as if they 
were his appointed duty, his business. Gorges 
annoyed him, because Gorges was too dull or 
too arrogant to take any notice of him. He 
got on very well with Whitehaven — nobody 
could help that. Whitehaven was so perfectly 
affable. 

But I did get my hour with him. He came 
to mnch^with me in my rooms and talked most 
of the afternoon. He told me how he had got 
involved in the Trafalgar Square row. “I fore- 
saw it, sir, a year before the day, and waited for 
it. We used to meet, a lot of dockers and my- 
self, at the Fiddle and Cat in Limehouse. They 
elected me a delegate, and I said I’d never fail 
them. Nor would I, if it hadn’t been for your 
Ferdinand Bergamot and his toy-Socialism. 
Pikes twisted up in Liberty-silk handkerchiefs! 
Birks the M.P. is a good man — but timid, sir. 
Would you talk to twenty thousand hungry men 
of ‘Law and Order’? 

“The helmet game came to me in a flash, 
when I saw that we could never get going in 
earnest. Good fun that was — but not business. 
We were past the moment for real work. 


34 


MAINWARINGr 


Bergamot spoilt that for us. He was by twice 
too long — and flowery, by heaven! He to talk 
about Thermidor! 

“As for the prison, it did good, sir. My 
wife felt the disgrace of it — she a young girl 
whose folk had always been respectable, she 
said — ” 

I don ’ t know why I was surprised to hear of 
his marriage; but I was, and told him so. He 
took it calmly. 

“She is at home, with her own people — ” I 
pictured a mild governess-type, fair and easily 
flushed, anxious over house-bills; but he went 
on — 

“Her father is a carter, and her mother does 
charging and laundry-work. Yes, sir, and 
Lizzy was on her knees at a doorstep when I 
first saw her.” 

There was nothing to say — and after all, what 
was there in it? After a pause I muttered 
something about hoping that she was not there 
still; but that also he took with a wave of his 
cigar. “She would take no harm by it — on 
a fine day. She is as strong as a young 
heifer.” 

She was, he said, besides that, the most beau- 
tiful woman on earth since the Venus of Milo’s 


BALM OF HEROES 35 

time. “ You ’ll be reminded of that goddess 
when yon see Lizzy. ’ ’ 

I asked him whether she was as good-looking 
as his hostess of the moment. “ There’s no 
comparison possible,” he told me. 4 ‘Lady 
Whitehaven is a lovely woman ; Lizzy is a beau- 
tiful woman. You cannot compare a star and a 
rose.” 

More came out by degrees. “She intimi- 
dated me, sir. I saw her on her knees, and 
felt that I must fall on mine. Faith, they were 
giving way. She was about the house all the 
morning. She scented and lit it up. I used to 
see her in the village, afternoons, with her 
friends. She walked like a young goddess 
among them, unconscious of her grace. She 
laughed and talked with them — unconscious 
condescension. And they took her for their 
equal. I talked to her. She answered fair 
and straight. No ‘sir’ to me. She concealed 
nothing — why should she ? A housemaid on her 
holiday — and tall as a queen. She knocked me 
out of time. I followed her about — I took her 
for walks. Love her! I worshipped her. I 
dreamed of her all night and thought of her 
all day. What was I to do? I spoke to her 
mother and terrified the good soul — but I didn’t 


36 


MAINWABING 


care. I’m not a villain, Whitworth. There 
was but one thing to be done. Besides, she was 
a good girl. Cold as spring-water. As pure 
as the family Bible. Well, I won over the 
mother, and she tackled her husband for me. 
He didn’t care for it, and I don’t blame him. 
I hadn ’t a rap — nor had he. But I was not his 
sort, and he knew that. He didn’t want any 
politics. ‘Damn my politics,’ I said. ‘Mr. 
Mathews, I’ll serve your daughter well. If 
you believe I have a head on me you must know 
that I shall succeed.’ He didn’t know but I’d 
succeed — but it would be a strange world for 
his Lizzie. There it was. I went back to the 
mother and battered at her heart. She’s an 
ambitious woman — come of a better race. She 
thinks she stooped to her good man. Has al- 
ways looked to her daughters to lift themselves. 
She has pinched to get them taught. Good man- 
ners, good conduct, beauty, grace, they have; 
but Lizzy is the pride of her heart. Her third 
girl — and there are three below her. Done on 
twelve shillings a week and what she can earn 
for herself. Heavens, she is a masterpiece. 

“Then I spoke to Lizzy. She was frightened 
cold. Wouldn’t hear of it. But I stormed her, 
with her mother’s help. She had never had a 


BALM OF HEROES 


37 


lover before. She had one then. Beautiful, 
noble creature ! Before I left Merrow she was 
mine. And she’s as poor now as when she was 
earning her eighteen pounds a year and all 
found.” 

A strange, wild tale — just like him. He was 
on fire with it before he had finished, and work- 
ing it in with his schemes to improve the con- 
dition of labourers at home, he ended by seeing 
himself the saviour of society. “I have done 
right. You will see for yourself when you come 
home. What nobler thing can there be than a 
good and beautiful woman ? There are a round 
ten millions of them in England. Am I their 
worse champion for holding one of them in my 
arms? Is the child I shall give her the worse 
bom? Lizzy, my good sir, is descended from 
the primal race of your country. Pure descent 
— no mixture of blood. My child will have the 
milk and marrow of Britain in his flesh. Noble 
through the mother. So it is that nobility 
should come. I am for the matriarchy since I 
have known Lizzy.” He had worked himself 
up to see no other woman in the world — at the 
moment. 

After that he borrowed a fiver, saying, “One 
must keep up with these gentry — and I have 


38 


MAIN WARING 


but sixteen shillings in my pocket, barring the 
price of the ticket home.” It then appeared 
that he was leaving in a week. “There’s ru- 
mour of trouble in the north, and I must be 
there.’ ’ 

“I think I’ll look in on you in the north,” I 
said, “and see how you make trouble.” 

“It will be worth it,” he said; “but it will be 
hungry work. ’ ’ 

“A strike!” 

“Ah,” said he, “such a strike as will need 
a man to hold up. I know what I am to do. 
I shall win, you will see. No fighting or ma- 
chine-breaking. Just starvation. We’ll shame 
the Government into action.” 

“And how will you keep ’em at starvation- 
point!” 

He squared his jaw. “By starving myself — 
myself and my young and beautiful wife — of the 
blood-royal of Britain.” 

“Poor girl,” I said, but he — 

“Not at all — not at all. Beauty has its busi- 
ness in the world, as well as its pleasure. Be- 
sides, she’s used to it.” 

You can never tell how a man feels about his 
wife by the way he speaks about her. Main- 


BALM OF HEROES 


39 


waring ’s last speech sounded cavalier to me, 
but I had noticed that he treated Lady White- 
haven in exactly the same fashion. Anyhow, 
he was conscious of his Lizzy’s good looks, and, 
to me, it was as plain as a pikestaff that her fair 
ladyship was quite ready to send him back to 
his Lizzy as soon as might be. She had no fur- 
ther use for him. The comet of a season, or 
the meteor of an October night, he was now 
spent, so much dry dust. That was her feeling; 
but it wasn’t Mainwaring’s. Main waring had 
no notion of being chucked away like an orange- 
peel. There he was, there intended to be. He 
didn ’t like leaving her at all — he gave her little 
but scowls and crooked brows for the rest of his 
time : a queer way of commending himself to a 
woman already bored with him, but truly a 
lover ’s way. She took it like the angel of sweet- 
temper that she was, and played her two fish 
beautifully. Gerald Gorges — horrible young 
prig — was sulky too. He was there to be 
adored, and, as she was beginning to adore him 
in very truth, it must have cost her dreadful 
pain. Little he cared for that. But she — ! 
Well, I don’t pretend to say that a married 
woman and a mother ought to be in love with 
one young man and allow herself to be loved 


40 


MAINWARING 


by another, but I do point out that in pure kind- 
ness to Mainwaring she allowed Gerald Gorges 
to stab her to the heart. What man would do 
as much for a bower full of women? 

Gorges and Mainwaring never spoke to each 
other. Gorges pretended that Mainwaring did 
not exist, and Mainwaring showed that he 
would have trodden Gorges out of life if he 
had had half a chance. It was pretty comic 
for lookers-on. Old Whitehaven was always 
chuckling to himself over it, and once he fairly 
winked me into a wicked partnership. 

Mainwaring grew heavily sentimental as the 
day drew near, and held her hand in the semi- 
dark. She oughtn’t to have allowed it, but she 
did. He made no pretence of concealing his 
feelings now. I heard him say at the theatre 
— “Then you will write?” He didn’t care 
who heard it. She nodded and smiled, and he 
leaned back in his chair, satisfied for the 
moment. 

She went to the station to see him off. La 
Blint was with her, and so was Whitehaven, 
the old brick. She ought to have been grateful 
to him for that, but no doubt she would have 
done as much for him. While we were wait- 
ing for the horn Mainwaring had taken the lady 


BALM OF HEROES 


41 


away to a remote part of the platform and held 
her in close talk. I saw his fierce chin, his hec- 
toring forefinger. She seemed to me to cower 
below him, and reminded me of a wood-pigeon 
before a large and very lean tom-cat. White- 
haven saw everything but didn’t let on. Miss 
Blint, I thought, was too scandalized to find 
small-talk. The ball was kept up between 
Whitehaven and me. Personally I was wonder- 
ing what would happen when they parted. 
Mainwaring was equal to anything, and she 
not equal to refusing anything. However, he 
didn ’t touch her, but came lunging back, slightly 
in advance of her, and with no more ceremony 
went through us into his carriage. The fac- 
chino, hovering about over his hand-luggage, 
got nothing ; we got nothing ; the train lumbered 
out. Mainwaring leaned from the window, 
nodded impartially to us all — and that was the 
last of him for the moment. 


IV 




THE STRIKE AT CULGAITH 

W HEN I came back to London in the 
early summer the Culgaith strike had 
been going three weeks. The town was full of 
it, and the journalists were whirling their 
words like Moors their match-locks at a powder- 
play. Everybody knew Mainwaring’s name. 
He was reported at length, and even the old 
Times had a guarded word or two in praise of 
his handling of the thing. I saw that he was 
playing what we now call Passive Resistance; 
but the puzzle was, not that he kept the Cul- 
gaith men from working, but how he prevented 
other men from taking their places. Picketing 
was not recognized in my young days, though 
of course it existed. But for three weeks the 
pits at Culgaith had been idle, the whole popu- 
lation of Skilaw was starving, and nobody from 
outside had come in. Mainwaring had drawn 
a magic circle round Skilaw and Culgaith, and 
the proprietors seemed to be powerless. The 
military — that favourite weapon of authority — 

42 


THE STRIKE AT CULGAITH 43 


could not be used, because there was nothing to 
use them on. And yet the newspapers could tell 
you nothing of Mainwaring’s thaumaturgics. 

Greatly interested in it all, I wrote to him 
at a venture, addressing him simply at Culgaith, 
Skilaw, Durham, and received a prompt reply 
in a beautiful, clear hand — certainly not his. 
He had signed it with a blotted scratch, R. D. 
B. M. The letter said simply, “Come up, my 
dear Whitworth, and see me with the many- 
headed on a leash. There is nothing to eat ; but 
you can bear for a day and night what we have 
borne for near a month. These people make 
me envy their Englishry. I never did that be- 
fore. By the Lord, sir, they are heroes. I 
think there will be another fortnight of it — and 
then we ’ll roll up the petition and have it over 
the Commons like a Juggernaut.” On that I 
went up to stay with some people I knew at 
Plassenby in the North Riding, and went over 
to Skilaw in due course. 

Anybody who knows East Durham will know 
what I saw. A long, shallow valley filled from 
end to end with squalid waste-tips, gaunt cranes 
like gallows, and the shabby excoria of industry. 
The hillsides were encrusted with row upon row 
of one-storeyed hovels, a sordid, hiving town 


44 


MAINWARING 


filled up tlie bottom. Dust and flies thickened 
the air, and all day the sun struck down through 
a burning mist. The station was crowded with 
fixed-eyed and pallid men. The women mostly 
kept at home. I don’t think I saw one in the 
station. 

Mainwaring was speaking somewhere at the 
time, I was told by an emissary, who directed 
me to his lodging in Alma Terrace; half an 
hour’s walk for a starving man, said my mes- 
senger; “but you could do it in fifteen minutes, 
maybe. ’ 9 

I said I should go down and hear Mainwaring 
speak, and went with my silent friend, thread- 
ing a way in streets filled with listless, idle 
people. They all had the slow yet bright eyes 
of famine. I caught sight of a woman or two, 
of some children, in doorways, sitting still, star- 
ing at nothing in particular, and my heart 
failed me. “Good God, what do you all live 
on!” I asked. 

‘ ‘ Our own hearts, mainly , 9 9 he told me. ‘ ‘ But 
we get a little strike-pay yet; and Mr. Main- 
waring goes round about the countryside, and 
mostly brings back something for the women.” 

“Mr. Mainwaring is a brave man.” 

“He is that, and he needs to be. There’s 


THE STRIKE AT CULGAITH 45 


many would have his life to end the strike.’ ’ 

“But you think he’s right to keep on?” 

“Ay, I’ve never doubted him.” 

“He’ll not fail if you don’t.” 

“We shall fail if he does.” Then he pointed 
to a swarming crowd at a street-end. “He’s 
yonder.” I heard shouts of laughter and ap- 
plause. 

“What is he at?” I wanted to know. 

“He’s telling them Irish tales,” I was told. 

We went as near as we could, and I heard 
Mainwaring for the first time. He was as lean 
as a winter wolf, and was standing on a pack- 
ing-case, from which an extravagant gesture 
might easily have upset him. But he used no 
gestures at all. He had a great, slow voice 
like a foghorn, monotonous in the extreme, but 
impressive from its very monotony, and, as I 
afterwards discovered, as apt for tragic or im- 
passioned speech as it was undoubtedly effective 
for his present purpose — which was to amuse 
these empty-bellied hordes. Everybody knows 
an Irish story or two, and I don’t pretend to 
tell his. There was nothing in them. I remem- 
ber that one was about the young policeman, 
stationed in the Curragh road to prevent racing. 
He was soon entranced by the outrageous spec- 


46 


MAIN WAKING 


tacle, his note-book forgotten. “Begod, that’s 
the best of them yet!” he was heard to cry as 
one Jehu came tearing through, cutting out or 
cutting down all rivals. It was that kind of 
thing — Leveresque farce ; but told with a 
brogue, a twinkle and a happy malice I never 
heard equalled. He seemed to have an inex- 
haustible supply, his audience a boundless appe- 
tite. I don ’t know how long he had been at it — 
but I’m sure I had three-quarters of an hour 
of it. My friend from the station told me that 
he filled the mornings up that way, and kept his 
serious talk for the afternoons. In the even- 
ings he went out visiting. He had the whole 
thing in hand, and all the Union officials were 
at his call. “We never had a man to touch 
him; we never learned of such a man outside 
a picture-book. Wherever he goes in the county 
of Durham it’s the same thing.” 

“Is that how he prevented the blacklegs from 
coming in?” 

“Ay, just that. He heard tell that a party of 
them was coming in from Armfield Plain, so he 
went to the Junction and spoke to them on the 
platform. The police was all there, and heard 
him ; but he never said a word they could take 


THE STRIKE AT CULGAITH 47 

hold of. They all went back to Armfield by 
the next train. They tried it on with men from 
Tyneside after that, and had the company ran 
a special through to Skilaw. He met them in 
the station-yard, when they refused him entry 
to the platform. They all went back home 
again — every man of them.” 

“He’s a man,” I said. 

“He is that. Some say he’s more. If he 
wins through this bout it’s my belief he’ll be 
chosen for every seat in the county at the next 
election. ’ ’ 

“One will be enough, even for Mr. Mainwar- 
ing,” I thought; but Mainwaring’s admirer 
must have the last word. 

“He’d fill three, would Mr. Mainwaring.” 

I made way through the press of pale and 
glazed-eyed men and met the hero in the midst. 
He was as thin as a shotten herring, and had 
hunger in his eyes. His dry lips gleamed grey 
through his black beard and moustache. I 
said, “Mainwaring, you’re killing yourself,” 
but he turned it off. “I’ll kill some of the 
Syndicate first,” he said. “We haven’t got to 
grips yet.” 


48 


MAINWARING 


“If you can last out at this present game,” 
I said, “you are bound to win without a drop 
of blood.” 

“Well, that’s my plan,” he said. “I’ve 
heard that they are meeting the Member to- 
day.” 

“Do they meet him here?” Mainwaring 
stared. 

“Here! Never in the world. He’d as soon 
meet in a beeswarm. It would take more than 
twenty of me to save him whole. The women 
would tear his entrails out.” 

“The women don’t show up.” 

“They cannot. They’ve sold nearly every 
rag that covers them, and children are being 
born dead every day. We send a list of them 
to the Syndicate — one to every member of it.” 

“Oh,” I said, “you have them.” 

Mainwaring sucked at his lips. “If we live 
to see it. But by God we are fairly famished 
here. Come home with me now and see my 
poor Lizzy. Saint Elizabeth of Hungry I call 
her, God forgive me.” 

“God will forgive all your jokes in this 
battle,” I said. “I felt the tragedy all through 
your good stories.” 

“Those are the best things I ever got out of 


THE STBIKE AT CULGAITH 49 


Ireland,’ ’ said he. “I’ve been at them now for 
ten days, and never told the same tale twice.” 

Alma Terrace, blistering on the hillside, and 
full of flies, took us a good half-hour of climb- 
ing, so much we were beset by anxious strikers. 
A baby ill, a baby dead, a woman in delirium, 
a child fainting at school. Heartrending — but 
Mainwaring listened to every account without 
blanching, decided each on its merits, prescribed 
the doctor to be sent for, the chemist where there 
was a credit given (there were two doctors and 
two chemists bold enough to serve), and took 
down names for extra rations that evening. 
Then we stooped at a low open door and saw 
Mrs. Mainwaring at a wash-tub in the back- 
kitchen. 

He had not spoken wildly, for once. She was 
a beautiful young woman, though she was woe- 
fully pale now, and as thin as a rake. Truly 
she had the round small head, broad shoulders 
and noble bust of the Venus, but she was dark- 
haired and dark-hued, with a pair of grev- 
green eyes ringed with black of extraordinary 
directness and intensity. As is always the case 
with the real working-class, her manners were 
unembarrassed and simple. I find that the 


50 


MAINWARING 


highest and the lowest are so — the highest, I 
suppose, because they don’t care to be anything 
but themselves, the lowest because they don’t 
dare. It is the middle-classes which make you 
uncomfortable because they can never be simple. 

Mrs. Mainwaring deprecated my offered hand 
by showing me her sudded pair, and then waited 
for me to say something. She smiled at hunger. 
“Oh, that’s nothing to me. Often and often, 
when I was a child, we had nothing in the house 
but stale crusts and a cold potato or two. The 
crusts got so hard that we used to soak them 
in water and drink them. But Mr. Mainwar- 
ing ’s not like me. It hurts him. It’s bad for 
him. Why, look at all the work he does. I 
do mind that. ’ ’ 

I said, “ He ’s doing great things. He ’s show- 
ing himself a great man. You are proud of 
him.” 

She didn’t admit it. “It’s better to be con- 
tented than talked about. Of course he is help- 
ing the people. I don’t know where they would 
be without him — now.” 

“What do you mean by — now!” 

Her eyes brooded. “Well,” she said slowly, 
“I don’t know that I ought to say it — but they 
were earning three times what my father earned 


THE STRIKE AT CULGAITH 51 


before this began, and working almost half the 
hours. ’ ’ 

She wouldn’t say any more; but I was struck 
by what she said. Mainwaring came down at 
that moment, his hands washed, and he sat down 
to what there was to eat. 

We dined on stale bread, potatoes and tea. 
Mainwaring had no money, and had been 
accorded strike-pay with the pitmen. He 
munched contentedly enough, talking fiercely 
throughout of what he should do — never of what 
he had done. His wife ate little, but made the 
most of her tea. She was in plain black, with 
a large white apron. She bore her discomfort 
and the squalor of her surroundings with a 
simple dignity which I admired extremely. I 
discovered another point of resemblance with 
the grandees in the way she and her husband 
took each other for granted. They reminded 
me of the Whitehavens, and that sort of couple 
with whose ways I was so far much more famil- 
iar — indeed I don’t know that I had ever met 
one of Lizzy Mainwaring ’s nation on such terms 
before. Middle-class women will sulk half the 
evening if their men are not loverlike, with 
flowers to bring home, or a “Not tired, dear- 
est?” They have a preconception, set up a 


52 


MAINWARINGr 


standard. Neither the Whitehavens nor the 
Mainwarings bother themselves with such gear. 
Mrs. Main waring didn’t ask him what his work 
for the afternoon was, and when he mentioned 
it, it was only to disburden himself, not to set 
her up with the knowledge. He had a com- 
mittee, and two meetings to go to, and all his 
morning’s post to deal with at night. She, so 
far as I could make out, had nothing to do but 
to write at his dictation. 

He went off to his committee, pretty well as 
hungry as he had come home, and his wife 
cleared the table and washed up. She smilingly 
declined my offer of help, but allowed me to put 
plates on the rack. When all that was done, 
the fire made up, and the kettle put on, she took 
her apron off and sat quietly down with her 
needlework. I saw what she was making, and 
indeed there were other signs. 

I had been brought up in the country, and was 
accustomed to country people; but, as I have 
said, I had never been in such a relationship 
as this to a country girl. It is curious how we 
are regulated at every turn in England by class- 
prejudice. I have been attracted by a pretty 
face often enough; I may have paid a servant 
a compliment and relished her blushes. There 


THE STRIKE AT CULGAITH 53 


has always been condescension implied and 
understood. Here for the first time in my life 
I met a peasant girl on equal terms. I felt it, 
I felt it a privilege, and took pains to deserve 
it. I did my utmost to talk to her as if she had 
been, say, Lady Whitehaven. But I don’t like 
to say that I succeeded. At the time, I felt 
that I was a dead failure. She was guarded in 
what she said, without seeming to be so. Short 
of cross-examination I did not see how I was to 
make her talk. Here Mainwaring was much 
more successful, with his brusque cavaliering, 
than I was. He took her beauty for granted; 
I took it as a thing for homage. He took her 
servitude for granted; I seemed to deprecate 
it by everything I said to her. And yet — she 
has told me since that she had been touched by 
my behaviour. “You seemed to understand 
me. I wanted to tell you everything. As it 
was, I told you more than I ought.” 

She meant, I suppose, that she had told me, 
from her own point of view, more or less what 
he had told me. Her courtship and marriage, 
for instance. “It was all done in a rush. I 
didn’t know that he cared for me like that. I 
hadn’t thought about it. I was in no hurry to 
get married. He asked me to walk with him, 


54 


MAINWARING 


and Mother thought I had better go. So I 
went. Then he asked me to marry him, and I 
said, it can’t be right. Mother and Father 
didn’t agree about it. But Mother was always 
looking for ways to rise.” 

“You were happy as you were, then?” 

“Yes, I was happy. I liked my work, and 
there was always home to look forward to. 
Now it is all dark. I don’t know my way 
about.” 

“You have no home yet?” 

“We have been in lodgings in London mostly. 
Mr. Mainwaring has been away very much. 
We have been married a year nearly. When 
this strike is over I expect we shall go to London 
again, unless — ” There she stopped, and I 
knew what she meant. The -great event of her 
life, that for which Nature made her, could not 
be far off. 

I talked to her about her husband, told her 
of my early acquaintance with him, and of what 
promise he seemed full. She heard me, with- 
out much enthusiasm, I thought. “Yes, he is 
very clever. He has a great power over other 
people. I know that. But — ” 

“But — what?” 

She grew vehement, shook her head. “It 


THE STRIKE AT CULGAITH 55 


frightens me. I’m not fit for that life. How 
should I he?” I thought that she pitied her- 
self. Her eyes were full. She recovered, how- 
ever, in a moment. “I ought not to tell you 
that. Don’t think of it, please. 

“I am trying to learn French,” she told me. 
“He helps me when he has time. Not now, of 
course. Just now I write his letters for him 
in the evenings. ’ ’ 

“You write a beautiful hand,” I said. 

“Yes, but I am too slow. I want to learn 
shorthand. I wish I had done that at school. 
Mother saved the money to send me to the High 
School. Just think of that — out of twelve shil- 
lings a week, and what she made herself ! 
They taught me all sorts of things there — al- 
gebra and history and literature. Shorthand 
would have been more useful to me now. ’ ’ 

“lam sure you won’t be sorry for what you 
learned there,” I said. 

“No, no. It has helped me. But — ” She 
sighed. 

Obviously the poor girl was not happy, nor 
was it easy to see how she could have been. 
If there had been passion at work, if she had 
been in love with him, there would have been 
something. But it did not seem to me that she 


56 


MAIN WABIN Gr 


was at all in love with Mainwaring. He was, 
or had been, in love with her. Anyhow, he had 
wanted her — and that, with such a man, means 
passion. Now try to strike a balance. If 
Mainwaring had had passion, he had known ec- 
stasy. If she had had none, what had she 
gained f Not happiness, which maybe she was 
not prepared for; but not comfort either. 
Comfort is what her people revel in. They ap- 
preciate it deeply. It means, in a word, secur- 
ity and a little over. Work within and to the 
limit of their powers; kindness, regularity; a 
steady supply of children and wherewithal to 
nourish them. I don’t suppose Lizzy Mathews 
in her dreams found anything more in life. It 
is the utmost dream of a nesting bird. Well, 
her grief, as I seemed to read her, was that she 
had no comfort, because no security. She was 
to work at what she did not understand ; she had 
no prospect of either home or means. Here she 
was, with a baby on the way, and nothing to 
feed it upon. 

For Mainwaring, she gave me to understand, 
had had no money when he married her, except 
the few guineas he earned by journalism, and 
none now but what the miners allowed him. 
Strike-pay, in fact! His future might be a 


THE STRIKE AT CULGAITH 57 


glorious one. But she didn’t want glory. 
She wanted a home. 

I tried to encourage her. “Oh, but,” I said, 
“if your husband sees this strike through, he’s 
a made man. He will be elected Member of 
Parliament, and the Union will give him a 
salary.” 

She admitted it. “Yes, I know that. They 
have told him that already. But it will be very 
strange to me. I don’t know how I am to face 
all the people he will have to do with — grand 
ladies and — lords and such-like. There’s a 
lady in London now who writes to him every 
week. She says that she wants to see me; but 
I can’t believe it.” 

“I think I know that lady,” I said. “If it 
is Lady Whitehaven, I am certain that she is 
telling the truth.” But Elizabeth looked in- 
credulous. 

“My husband writes to her, I know, and she 
answers him. There’s no reason why she 
should want to see me. He has told her what 
I was — I gave him no peace until he did.” 

“You were perfectly right,” I said. “I 
don’t doubt that Lady Whitehaven would like 
to know you, on that ground as much as any 
other. Don’t imagine for a moment that she 


58 


MAINWARING 


gives herself airs. I assure you that she is a 
very honest person, with friends all over the 
world, and in every walk in life. She admires 
your husband’s talents, and befriended him 
when he came out of prison because she knew 
that he suffered in a good cause. If you will 
let me give you some advice, you will get to 
know Lady Whitehaven. She is a good soul — 
and, remember, it is very difficult for her sort to 
get in touch with you and me.” 

She said nothing, hut pressed her lips to- 
gether and looked far through the open door 
to the hazy hillside. I don’t for a moment think 
she was jealous of Lady Whitehaven. I don’t 
think she resented Mainwaring’s letter-writing 
— which she evidently knew had drawn the 
lady ’s letters in reply. What I do rather think 
is that she felt Main waring and such people to 
be birds of a feather, and distrusted her own 
quieter plumage. As I had foreseen, however, 
Lady Whitehaven was much too intelligent, and 
much too generous, to be mistaken in Lizzy 
Mainwaring. They did become friends, and 
shared confidences which would have discon- 
certed anybody but Mainwaring himself. They 
might have made the Grand Turk blush. But 
that comes later. 


THE STRIKE AT CULGAITH 59 


She gave me tea at five o’clock, and I stayed 
with her till my last train went. Through her 
broken utterances, her sighs, her hopeless 
searching of the sky I conceived a pity for her 
almost amounting to horror. I have seen a 
thrush in winter, frozen tame, crouched against 
the wall, waiting bright-eyed for death. So she 
seemed to me. She never alluded to herself, ex- 
cept once when she said that she had thought 
of going out to work again. She added to that, 
“But it’s rather difficult just now.” She fell 
into long silences towards the end of my stay, 
and in spite of all I could do was despondent 
and near to tears. I thought of her, as Main- 
waring had seen her first, in her beauty and 
strength, rejoicing in her work, innocent, with- 
out a care in the world. I thought that to take 
a fair young creature like that, and give her 
children, surround her with comfort and happi- 
ness, was a career for a man. I thought that 
I might have been the man. I was romantic in 
those days — and I become so again as I remem- 
ber them. 

I don’t think I was in love with her, but I 
know that I was deeply interested. Perhaps 
she knew it, and was grateful to me. She didn’t 
want me to go. 


60 


MAINWARIN Gr 


“He won’t be in till eight,” she said, “and 
then there will be all these letters, after he has 
had his supper. He hasn’t opened them yet.” 

I thought that we could open them, and save 
him time by sorting then out, but, oh, no, that 
wouldn’t do at all. “I never open his letters.” 

When it was absolutely time for me to go 
she grew so pensive that I felt a great longing 
to help her. “How shall I know how things 
are going with you ? I shall want to hear that 
you are well, and happier than you are now.” 

She looked at me. “Shall you really? I 
will write, then, if I may.” 

“Please write to me.” I wrote down my ad- 
dress. I hoped that she would let me call when 
she was in London. “I shall see you a member 
of Parliament’s lady before very long.” 

“I shall never be that,” she said, “though 
I am his wife.” 

“You will disappoint your mother, and your 
husband too. You would not fail your hus- 
band?” 

She answered with dry heat. 4 4 He knew what 
I was. He saw me scrubbing the doorstep. 
Why didn’t he think? He is very clever. I 
could work to the bone for him — but I can’t do 
what he wants me to do. I would work for the 


THE STRIKE AT CULGAITH 61 


poor, as I do. I know what it is to be poor, and 
I know that the poor must help each other — 
So we do. But he wants something which I 
can’t give him.” 

She gave me her hand, and stood in the door- 
way looking after me. I turned at the corner 
of the terrace, and saw her there yet. Pale 
face, rueful figure, sad eyes. I took off my hat, 
she lifted her hand. I hope she knew me for a 
friend. 

I have said that I was not in love with her, 
but I am not so sure. I was a romantic youth, 
all the more so for being a shy one. Shyness 
drives the passion inwards and hardens, while 
it deepens, the root of it. But if I was in love 
with her, it was not by any means by reason of 
her beauty, nor altogether because I pitied her, 
nor, again, by admiration of the patient dignity 
with which she bore her misfortunes. It was 
the sharp isolation in which she was placed 
fixed my attention first upon her. It was her 
whole allure: she was beautiful; she was unfor- 
tunate; she was out of my world altogether. 
Yet she was intensely a woman, and made me 
feel intensely a man. She was, in fact, an ele- 
mental — and before her mere humanity the 
trappings of my caste fell from me. I stood, 


62 M AIN W ARIN G 

man, before ber, man’s mate, in the primeval 
wild. 

Lizzy made no compromise with life : she was 
woman through and through, nesting woman. 
I think that nothing entered into her view of the 
scheme of things, but to work and to have 
children. I was to know that she could love, 
but not yet. One other thing she knew, one 
other law of being. Duty. Whether she had 
religion or not, I am not clear. She used to go 
to church; it soothed her and in a way helped 
her in her dreary life. She said her prayers, 
she read her Bible, she respected the clergy as 
a class apart. But duty to her was a way of 
life. She could not transgress by a hair’s- 
breadth. Not only so, but the language of 
transgression, however qualified, would be im- 
possible to her. She had been given to Main- 
waring in church. Why? Because he had 
asked for her. Well, then, she belonged to 
Mainwaring. As long as he lived she was at 
his call. She could not, perhaps, be happy with 
him ; she could not, certainly, be happy without 
him, so long as he was there. She had married 
him without love — that couldn ’t be helped. She 
must do without love. All that I saw; and 
though I did not understand it I could not but 


THE STRIKE AT CULGAITH 63 


admire the manifestation of it, so deeply felt, 
so bravely faced by the fine creature. 

Mainwaring was booming tragi-heroics in the 
Square as I went down to the station through 
the hot dusk. 


V 


THE PETITION AND THE RETURN 

M AIN WARING, who brought a school- 
boy zest for preposterous joking into 
everything he did, enjoyed himself hugely over 
the Culgaith petition. It had been preparing 
when I had been up there in the summer, was 
ready by the beginning of August, and was pre- 
sented before the House rose. He had been 
promised that it should be the biggest thing 
of the kind ever got into St. Stephen’s, and I 
daresay it was. Allenby told me all the news 
from day to day: you know how scandal and 
gossip, those two chinning hags, pile up detail. 
It was brought up to them in a milk-van, met 
at King’s Cross by deputations of dockers, rail- 
waymen, gas-fitters, boilermakers, and riveters, 
and escorted across London with banners, con- 
veyed itself in a wagon and six dray horses. 
Mainwaring and six of the strikers came with it. 

Bill Birks, Moresby, Coward and some others 
of their kidney met them in Palace Yard and 
took the convoy into the lobby; vast crowds 

64 


THE PETITION AND THE RETURN 65 


'guarded the mountainous cylinder outside. 
Heaven was with them, for one of the Culgaith 
men fainted in the lobby, and fell heavily. 
Sheer hunger, not a doubt of it. Birks made 
the most of that for the benfit of the Commons, 
and did it so well that sympathy resulted in- 
stead of exasperation. The petition was re- 
ceived, and for a good half-hour the House was 
like a National School yard at eleven o’clock 
in the morning. Good-humour, tolerance, 
brotherly love prevailed. All to the good. At 
night there was a dinner at the Freemasons 7 
Tavern; the whole of the Radical party there; 
a speech from Mainwaring which Allenby told 
me w T as massive and concrete, but made into 
kind of puddingstone by jokes and epigrams. 
Six hundred pounds was collected in the room 
for Culgaith. Mainwaring and his men had a 
great send-off in the morning. Personally, I 
saw next to nothing of him, for I don’t like be- 
ing cut by exalted demagogues and I knew what 
kind of a state of mind had possession of Main- 
waring at such a crisis. But I sought out his 
route to King’s Cross on the morning of his 
return, and had a glimpse of him standing up in 
an open barouche, his hat in his hand, his white 
face fixed to a plastered grin ; only his sunken 


66 


MAINWARING 


eyes alive. I have seen dervishes escorted into 
Oriental towns, so transfigured by starvation 
and mania — Mainwaring was just like any one 
of them. The pity of it was, to me, that the 
whole thing was a bit of self-seeking of his own. 

As everybody will remember who is as old 
as I am, something was done for Culgaith. 
Pressure was brought to bear upon the owners, 
who gave way. Mainwaring was a great man 
all over the North, and a marked man, to say 
the least of it, in the South. At the General 
Election fifteen months later, he was returned 
unopposed for the division in which Skilaw 
stands and swinks. I saw very little of him, as 
he remained in the North, but I heard that his 
child was born dead in the November following 
his London excursion, and wrote to his wife to 
say how much I felt for her — or rather, to con- 
ceal how much I felt for her. She didn’t an- 
swer. 

I admired her so much for what she was that 
I should have been sorry, I believed, if she had 
answered. Letters of that sort, amiable noth- 
ings-at-all, were plainly not within the scope of 
her being. But I wanted to be in touch with 
her somehow, even through Mainwaring if there 


THE PETITION AND THE RETURN 67 


were no other way; so said the only thing I 
could, short of going up to the North (which I 
feared might affront her), and made the best 
of my slight acquaintance with the White- 
havens. I visited that random house of pleas- 
ure and ease — where the master of the house 
never was and where the mistress of it was 
never alone — and got a snatch or two of news. 

The lady was in the flutter of a full-fledged 
love-affair. I heard a great deal more of 
Gerald Gorges than of Mainwaring, but the two 
were intertwined — so I got something. She 
was curious about his wife, had heard that she 
was — ‘ ‘ not quite ’ ’ ; perhaps I knew her ? I said 
that I did, and that I thought her the most beau- 
tiful young woman in the world. Lady White- 
haven immediately warmed to her. “How de- 
lightful ! I must get her here. I ’ll tell Richard 
to bring her.” 

Richard ! 

I said, “Richard would do it. He admires 
her himself; he’s proud of her. But she won’t 
come, you’ll see.” Lady Whitehaven put her 
pretty head on one side, and looked like a wilting 
rose. 

“I see, I see. That will be very troublesome 
of her. I do so love having beautiful people 


68 


MAIN WARING 


about me. Couldn’t you persuade her? Tell 
her that I’m quite kind, and all that sort of 
thing.” 

“You could persuade her better than I 
could,” I told her. “I suppose Mainwaring 
will get in — then he ’ll have to come to London. ’ ’ 

“Oh,” she said, “of course he’ll come to 
London. He has promised.” 

“He would,” I said. “If he brings his 
wife with him, perhaps you’ll call on her.” 

She said that she certainly would, and wanted 
to know more about her. I didn’t feel at liberty 
to oblige her to that extent, but did give her to 
understand that Mainwaring had fallen wildly 
in love, and had carried Lizzy off her feet. 
That her ladyship had no difficulty about. 
“He’s so impulsive, isn’t he? He can’t bear 
to be denied anything. And quite irresistible 
when he has really made up his mind.” She 
pinched her lower lip with her thumb and finger. 
“It will be rather difficult — but I shall be so 
sorry for her that I believe I shall succeed. 
You know I am rather used to having my own 
way, too.” 

I said that I was sure of it, but added some- 
thing about stone walls and injury to the toes. 
Lady Whitehaven gently sighed and looked 


THE PETITION AND THE RETURN 69 


about to see of Gerald Gorges bad come in. He 
bad. I saw him in the distance, a good bead 
above any one else, looking like a very handsome, 
and sulky giraffe. Then she saw him also, and 
a lovely blush flooded her as her eyes fell before 
his — one of the prettiest things I ever saw — and 
she a mother of four children, the eldest nearly 
out of the schoolroom. She recovered in a 
moment and got rid of me charmingly. Soon 
after that I saw them together, the world for- 
getting, but not by the world forgot — for the 
world was by this time openly aware of what 
was going on, and as pleased about it as a 
child with a new toy. Such was, in the begin- 
ning, is now, and ever shall be, that particular 
world. 

Gerald Gorges’ return to London synchro- 
nized within a few months with Main waring ’s 
return to Parliament, which was unfortunate 
in one way, because it brought to a head matters 
which weren’t ready for that violent solution. 
The lady wanted Mainwaring to impend, but 
here he was on Gerald Gorges’ toes like a ton 
of bricks. She wanted the young man to be 
uneasy; but he was disgusted. He knew only 
too well what was due to himself; he was so 


70 


MAIN WAKING 


clear about that as to allow it wholly to obscure 
what he owed to her. So he obstinately and 
obdurately ignored Mainwaring’s scowls and 
hands deeply thrust in his breeches ’ pockets, 
and made it difficult for Lady Whitehaven to 
have them both in the room together. To save 
herself she handed him over to her sister Leven, 
who made much of him after her manner and 
kept open house for him. Mainwaring accepted 
her as a gift, but did not on her account cease 
to besiege the lady of his heart. 

The very first time I met him was in Caven- 
dish Square; and the first thing he said to me 
was — “We are in lodgings in Chelsea. Lizzy 
is moping like a sick hen. I hope you ’ll go and 
see her.” 

I said, “Certainly I shall. But you have no 
business to let her mope.” He stared at me 
as if I was suddenly a fool, then cleared his 
face of scorn and said, “She won’t come here. 
You may make her, the Lady may make her — 
but I can’t. And I think she’s quite right.” 

So did I, and I said so. The question, how- 
ever, had been, Was he quite right? That he 
thought fit to pass over. He gave me the ad- 
dress — Tedworth Square — and dropped me and 
the subject. No — he spoke of himself, I re- 


THE PETITION AND THE RETURN 71 


member. He had taken his seat and was medi- 
tating a maiden speech. The lady was going 
to hear him, and would take Lizzy, if Lizzy 
would go. He strongly thought that she 
wouldn ’t. 

It was a sunny afternoon in June when I 
went to see her. Exactly a year since Culgaith. 
She was out, but I waited, and presently she 
came in. She had been buying flowers. She 
had a broad-brimmed black straw hat, a plain 
black cotton frock, and looked divine. Her 
dark skin flushed with pleasure, her green eyes 
shone. There was no doubt she was glad to 
see me, though of course she didn’t say so. I 
had brought her some roses, and was rewarded 
by seeing her handle them. She chose one for 
her gown, and put the others in water — silently, 
very intent upon the matter, and I think with 
no thought that I was watching her. I didn’t 
want her to talk — there was plenty of time for 
that ; but I did want to look at her. 

•She fetched me tea herself, and the landlady 
came back with some of the refreshment, a 
sharp-faced but pleasant London woman, who 
said at once how nice it was to have a little 
“We don’t see much of Mr. Main- 


company. 


72 


MAINWARING 


waring, do we?” she said to Lizzy, I thought 
rather provocatively; but it didn’t draw any 
answer. 

Over the tea-cups the poor girl was moved 
to talk to me of her loss. “I wanted Mother 
very badly,” she said, “but some of the people 
up there were as kind as could be. I felt leav- 
ing it up there. It was a horrible place. ’ 9 She 
added, with a little gasp of sorrow, “And I 
wasn’t the only one to lose my baby in Skilaw.” 

One knew all about that, and rather dreaded 
the reflection that Main waring ’s responsibility 
was heavy. I suspected that she quite realized 
that, and got her off the rueful subject as soon 
as I could. I wanted to know now what she 
proposed to do with herself in London; she 
couldn’t tell me. 

“He wants you to go about with him, no 
doubt, ’ ’ I said. She busied herself with her tea- 
spoon. 

“I don’t know that he does,” she said pres- 
ently, “but I have told him that I won’t go to 
his great houses, if they ask me.” Then she 
looked straight at me. “I expect you think I 
am wrong.” 

I said, “No, no, I think you are right — until 
you are quite sure how you will be received. 


THE PETITION AND THE RETURN 73 


But there are people among them, you know, 
who couldn’t go wrong in that kind of thing if 
they tried. His Lady Whitehaven is one — the 
kindest woman in London.” 

Lizzy’s fine nostrils dilated. “I daresay she 
is kind enough.” 

4 ‘ She will call on you pretty soon, you ’ll find, ’ ’ 
I told her. 

“I can’t prevent that,” Lizzy said, “and 
why should I? But she won’t get me to her 
house. There is no reason in it. I told Mr, 
Mainwaring so.” 

“I am sure it would please him if you could 
make a friend of her,” I said. 

She answered me coldly, looking carefully 
away from me. “He thinks a great deal of 
Lady Whitehaven — and she likes it. She is 
kind-hearted, and doesn’t want me to think 
there’s anything in it.” 

“Nor is there,” I said — sinning against the 
light. 

She laughed: not happily. “Oh, I’m not 
jealous. He might go and see her every day. 
Perhaps he does. But I don’t care to help 
them, exactly.” 

Then I tried to put it another way. “No, 
you don’t care to help an idle flirtation — hut you 


74 


MAINWARING 


do care to help your husband. Lady White- 
haven can be very useful to him.” 

She wouldn’t have that; she was much too 
candid. “No,” she said, “he didn’t go into 
Parliament to help her party. He went in to 
help the poor people. Only the poor can help 
the poor — I’m sure of it. He went in as a 
working-man, though he has never been one. 
She will put him in the wrong — or he will put 
himself there. You’ll see.” 

“Well, then,” I said, “let’s face it. You 
won’t know his friends, and have none of your 
own. What will you do?” 

She seemed to have made up her mind. “I 
shall get some work presently, through a clergy- 
man or some one. Besides, I do a great deal 
for Mr. Mainwaring. We can’t afford a secre- 
tary. I shall learn typewriting and shorthand, 
if I can manage them. I expect I can.” 

I didn ’t think I had been getting on with her. 
It seemed to me as if I was pumping her, and 
that she unwillingly replied ; but then I was very 
much flattered. She began to talk about affairs, 
and I saw that I had gained her confidence. 
Nothing ever made me happier than that. 
Mainwaring had £150 a year allowed him by the 


THE PETITION AND THE RETURN 75 


Executive of the constituency; he made per- 
haps another £150 by journalism. It could have 
been much more, but he would not give the time 
to it. Meantime he spent nearly twice that, 
was in debt and had no prospect of getting out 
of it. She was awfully worried. In the middle 
of all this Mainwaring came in, and fixed us with 
his glazed, cavernous eyes. 

But he was glad to see me, and very nearly 
said so. He walked over to Lizzy where she 
sat, still before the tea-tray, and put his hand 
on her shoulder. “My poor girl, this is good 
seeing. So he has been amusing you? Now, 
I’ll not be interrupting you. I am only on a 
flying visit.’ ’ 

She sat under his caressing hand, looking 
down at her own which were idle, twisting to- 
gether in her lap. I asked him if the House 
was up ; he said, No ; but he had come home to 
change. “I’m dining out, to tell you the 
truth,” he said. “I’ll ask my girl to get my 
things out, and some hot water, and then I must 
get back.” 

She rose at once, and his arm slipped to her 
waist, and held her. “She won’t come with 
me by any persuasion of mine,” he said. 


76 


MAINWARING 


u Perhaps you will have better luck. Not but 
wbat she'd have a dull time with the peacocks 
and popinjays I have to meet.” 

“We can imagine you pranking with the best 
of them,” I said. He beard me, but took no 
notice. His looks were bent to his wife's 
averted cheek. 

“Run, my darling, and get my things for me. 
I mustn't wait.” 

She went away at once, and he prepared to 
follow her. At the door he turned to me. 

“You see, I am learning my weights and mea- 
sures. I know more than I did yesterday — and 
so it goes on. I'm creeping up — and soon I 
shall shoot ahead.” 

“It's dull for your wife,” I said. 

He wagged his head. “You know what she 
was. A home-keeping bird. 'Tis the nest, 
the nest, with her nation.” 

“Get her a nest then, confound you,” was 
in my head — but he had gone. 

I thought that I had better go too, but waited 
to say good-bye to Lizzy. She came down after 
a short interval and stood by me, listening 
while I talked. My poor proposals for her en- 
tertainment hereafter met with little encourage- 
ment. It was clear to me that her only chance 


THE PETITION AND THE RETURN 77 


was to have another baby and a house of her 
own. She was — Mainwaring was perfectly 
right — a nesting bird. Thousands of years had 
gone to the producing of her. I praise God 
that it is so. So my proffer of a married sis- 
ter, a perfectly good sort, of a parson’s wife 
in Chelsea, an old friend of ours, and the like, 
fell rather flat. I didn’t venture to propose 
taking her out much. She would have come; 
but people would have talked; and when she 
knew that she wouldn’t like it. So my conver- 
sation was futile — yet I didn’t want to go, and 
she didn’t want me to. We fell to silences, 
chance sentences not needing an answer, mak- 
ing of talk, seeing the pretence, but each glad 
that the other saw it. I was in love with her; 
probably she suspected it. It may have soothed 
her innocent vanity — I don’t know. 

Then Mainwaring came blundering down- 
stairs — he was much too tall for the stairs, and 
a ridiculous thing happened. He got into the 
room, looking (for him) remarkably combed 
and harmonious, and was preparing to be off 
when he found he had forgotten his handker- 
chief. Bolting out of the room, he slammed the 
door after him. We heard a struggle, a tear- 
ing, a rending, a prodigious crack — then silence. 


78 


MAINWARINGf 


Presently lie came in again, a coat-tail in his 
hand. “That was a relief,” he said. “Some- 
thing was bound to go, and it couldn’t have been 
me.” 

“It might have been the door,” I said, but 
he had turned to his wife. 

“My darling,” he said, “just fetch a couple 
of black safety-pins. We’ll soon have this put 
right.” 

Lizzy looked her disapproval. “No, no; I 
must sew it.” 

He wouldn’t have that. “I tell you I can’t 
wait. You must do as I tell you. Otherwise I 
shall go with one tail.” 

We knew very well that he would have done it. 
So Lizzy fetched the pins, and so patched up 
off he went to the House and to the White- 
havens. He was at a party of the Duchess’s 
later on in the evening, and, I was not surprised 
to hear, made no secret of his accident. But 
Lizzy had been scandalized. The question of 
how far a man, of genius or not, can have a 
beautiful woman as the slave of his whims, am- 
bitions, absurdities or blunders need not now be 
discussed. I remember how hotly it blazed 
within me that night. But I had become a par- 
tisan. 


VI 


IN AND OUT OF THE HOUSE 

T HE time and the occasion of his maiden 
speech having been decided upon, Main- 
waring most characteristically rushed into de- 
bate many days before the appointed day, un- 
prepared, in a savage temper, and not to be 
restrained. A question, and then a motion for 
adjournment, about flogging in the army stirred 
his bile. In a moment he was up, all the length 
of him rocking like a tree, lecturing the House 
about man’s essential dignity. He quoted 
Pico della Mirandola (of all heroes dead in the 
world) with great and incisive effect. Even in 
print the words can move me. “ Neither a 
fixed abode, nor a form in thine own likeness, 
nor any gift peculiar to thyself alone, have we 
given thee, 0 Adam, in order that what abode, 
what likeness, what gifts thou shalt choose, may 
be thine to have and to possess. ... I have set 
thee midmost the world, that there thou 
mightest the more conveniently survey what- 
soever is in the world ... to the end that 
79 


80 


MAINWARING 


thou, being thy own free maker and moulder, 
shouldst fashion thyself in what form may like 
thee best. Thou shalt have power to decline 
into the lower or brute creatures. Thou shalt 
have power to be re-born unto the higher, or 
divine, according to the sentence of thy intel- 
lect ! Thus to Man at his birth the Father gave 
seeds of all variety and germs of every form 
of life. ^ ’ 

In the eighteen-eighties the House had not 
quite lost touch with the glamour of the seven- 
teen-eighties. Facts tell now; in those days 
style did much of the business. The zest and 
the manner have gone, not to return. Burke 
would he a bore today, Sheridan would be called 
a coxcomb. When Mainwaring made his first 
speech his vehemence and apparent sincerity, 
coupled with eloquence and the tinge of learning 
imparted by a happily remembered quotation, 
had the power to impose. The House was ruled 
by two great men who both had scholarship. 
Hardman led the opposition, in which, of course, 
Mainwaring ranked; Bentivoglio was First 
Lord: Hardman with the angry, intent eyes of 
some accipitrine fowl, sitting couched in his 
place ; Bentivoglio with his sick-smiling mask, 
weary and inexpressive, over against him, al- 


IN AND OUT OF THE HOUSE 81 


ways ready for him, with velvet gloves over his 
claws. Almost everything said or done there 
then was, as it were, a prelude to a single com- 
bat between those two. Now, on this occasion, 
as I was told, Hardman was annoyed with his 
henchman. He did not detect prelude, and did 
smell rebellion. Mainwaring had arranged 
nothing with the Whips; he had just plunged 
in, and could hardly have been stopped. That 
upset old Hardman’s idea of party discipline. 
Therefore he took no notice whatever when 
Mainwaring bounced down as suddenly as he 
had bounced up, and a roar of applause fol- 
lowed. That was Bentivoglio ’s cue. He took 
occasion to compliment the Honourable Mem- 
ber upon a “ speech of unpremeditated elo- 
quence, of scholarship in happy union with pas- 
sion,” and did not fail to say how “precious” 
it must have been to the Bight Honourable gen- 
tleman upon the other side. The Bight Hon- 
ourable gentleman sat on like a wicked old 
stone eagle. 

In the opinion of good judges Mainwaring 
hardly, in the House of Commons, surpassed 
that outburst — except, of course, once. Cer- 
tainly I thought his official maiden-speech 
laboured, pompous and dull. I don’t know 


82 


MAINWARINO 


what his wife thought of it, hut remember how 
she described the effect upon her of that, her 
only visit to the House. 

“They were only playing,’ ’ she said, after 
she had been silent for sometime. “I don’t 
care to go there any more — hut it was very kind 
of Lady Whitehaven to take me.” 

Lady Whitehaven had called upon her and, 
as I had expected, Lizzie couldn’t help liking 
her. I guessed — but didn’t know it certainly 
for a long time — that the simpleton had read the 
complicated lady like a scented manuscript; 
I mean that the perfume did not in the least 
obscure the sense. “She’s not happy — she 
wants it both ways.” That was one of Lizzy’s 
comments. Another was, “I have made up my 
mind. I won’t have anything to do with it. I 
never will. ’ ’ She meant that she would be sec- 
retary, drudge, bondmaid to the man who had 
married her, but no more. She would not rise 
with him — if it was rising. She did not her- 
self, at any time, admit the elevation. “He 
could do good to the poor in Parliament, but 
not in that way,” was one of her shots at ex- 
planation of herself. “Only the poor can help 
the poor.” She had said that before; it was 
the root of her belief. When I said that to cut 


IN AND OUT OF THE HOUSE 83 


the classes inevitably apart was to despair of 
a happy nation, since there must he rich and 
not so rich, she took me np. “ Why must there 
be? Christ didn’t think so.” Then I saw that 
she was an idealist without knowing it, and was 
ashamed. 

“It comes to this, then,” I said to her. 
“Lady Whitehaven must come to you in her 
troubles, for you will never go to her.” 

“Yes,” said Lizzy; “she must step down 
since I can’t step up.” 

“And you, in your troubles, will never trouble 
her.” 

She laughed uneasily, as if to cover up her 
troubles. “No, I shan’t go to her.” 

After that I was complimented by the fact 
that she gave me her confidence freely; her 
doubts and difficulties were increasing. “He’s 
so extravagant — you don’t know. We are in 
debt to the landlady, and he simply won’t listen 
to her when she comes with her book.” I re- 
membered the waiters at Marseilles and his way 
of roughriding them. “I got money from my 
mother to pay some of it/’ she went on, “out 
of the Savings Bank. But it can’t be right.” 

“It isn’t right at all,” I said, “but it will 
probably come right. He is bound to rise. 


84 


MAINWARING 


He can’t help it, and it is only a question just 
now of hanging on. ’ 9 

To poor Lizzy this was not so plain. “He 
gets three pounds a week from the Union, and 
makes almost as much again from the news- 
papers. But it all melts away like cat-ice. He 
makes more in a week than we at home could 
have saved in a year — and doesn’t pay his 
bills.” 

“You hate all that?” 

“Oh, hate it!” She bit her lip. “Well, we 
never expect much out of life, do we?” The 
philosophy of the poor ! No comfort for 
Lizzy’s nation in finding out whether you hate 
a thing or not. But she tempered it to me pres- 
ently by a very pathetic touch. “I did expect 
that my baby would have been bora alive. ’ ’ 

I think the passion for making people happy 
was bora in me: an instinct, perhaps. I felt at 
this moment that nothing in the world mattered 
to me except to make Lizzy Mainwaring happy 
— but what could I do? Mainwaring stood in 
my way. Supposing I had paid her bills for 
her, it would only have been paying Mainwar- 
ing ’s bills — and to do that would have been 
like pouring wine into the Thames at Lon- 
don Bridge. As a matter of fact, he already 


IN AND OUT OF THE HOUSE 85 


owed me some fifty pounds or so — but that 
isn’t the question really. A few pounds more 
or less would neither stop Mainwaring nor help 
Lizzy. He was on the make, so obviously on it 
that it seemed like combating a law of nature 
to try to reduce him to the convenience of a 
woman. If Lizzy Mainwaring, Rose White- 
haven, a respectable landlady, a hardworking 
mother-in-law with a stockingful of money in 
Sussex were but grist for his mill, in they must 
go. So it seemed then. 

The leopard had not changed his spots. 
Mainwaring was exactly as I had known him 
five or six year ago. Money to him was noth- 
ing. If he had it he got on rather faster, if 
he had it not, he got on rather slower — but he 
always got on. I did not know then — I did 
afterwards — what he spent it on: he didn’t as 
yet attempt entertaining, and as for entertain- 
ing himself, he was perfectly indifferent what 
he ate or drank. He dressed simply, and ex- 
pected his wife to look nice. I am sure that 
between them they didn’t spend a hundred a 
year on clothes. But he was lavish with his 
half-crowns; he took a number of cabs; if he 
wanted a book he ordered it ; if he wanted to go 


86 


MAINWARING 


anywhere he went, and in the first class. He en- 
tertained people, he belonged to clubs. Ten 
pounds a week will go easily in this way — and 
that’s five hundred a year on nothing, as you 
may say. To Lizzy, poor dear, this was 
frightful — she didn’t stay to reflect that in 
marrying a gentleman she had mated herself 
to no more than a gentleman’s habits. I sup- 
pose she should be blamed for doing it — but 
when she said that she hadn’t been able to help 
it, I myself can well believe it. At this moment 
of which I am writing she was no more than 
twenty-two, and had had three years ’ pretty in- 
tolerable misery. However, to cut all that 
short, I couldn’t stand it. She was wearing 
herself to fiddlestrings over nothing at all. I 
spol ^ to the landlady, who was quite reason- 
able about it, and made myself more or less re- 
sponsible for her book. Finally I spoke to 
Lizzy herself, and saw her eyes fill. She didn’t 
trust herself to speak, and when she did said 
something about not being able to look at me 
again. “ Isn’t it better to be indebted to a 
friend than to a landlady?” I asked her. Yes, 
she supposed so. “And may I not call myself 
your friend?” Then she faintly smiled. 


IN AND OUT OF THE HOUSE 87 


“ Yon mean that I may ? ’ ’ She nodded. When 
I went away she came to the door with me. 
“You are good. It makes me happy. I shall 
tell Mr. Mainwaring.” “Do,” I said. “That 
will make him happy too.” She shook her 
head. “He won’t care.” And of course he 
didn’t 

Lizzy kept her word and was never inside the 
Whitehavens’ mansion; nevertheless the count- 
ess needed her, and therefore was pretty often 
in Chelsea. She was able to clear her own con- 
science, but in one way only. It became neces- 
sary for her to tell Lizzy the truth, that Main- 
waring was no longer necessary to her happi- 
ness, but on the contrary a decided impediment 
to it. I know now that she told the whole state 
of the case about Gerald Gorges, and that by 
appealing frankly for pity, obtained it. I un- 
derstand now, again, why the Duchess made 
so much of the man : it was because she detested 
Gerald Gorges and saw Mainwaring a spoke in 
his wheel. But none of this was explained at 
the time to Lizzy because poor Lady White- 
haven imagined that her sister saw the dema- 
gogue as admirable and interesting a figure as 


88 


MAIN WARING 


she herself saw him. And that leads me to a 
curious little incident of which I was accident- 
ally a witness. 

I happened upon the two women together one 
afternoon, entering unannounced, as I did some- 
times when the maid-servant was ashamed to 
show herself, poor child. Lady Whitehaven 
had Lizzy’s hand between her own, and was 
looking up at her from the stool on which she 
sat, all flame-colour and ardour. Lizzy, her 
junior by ten years, was speaking incisively, 
and with a scorn which sadly discountenanced 
the lady. “Oh, him! He only works for him- 
self.” To one who demands couleur de rose for 
her daily bread that was much too uncom- 
promising. Lady Whitehaven was true to 
type. She shook her head and laughed, as 
she rose and shook hands with me. “Really, 
Lizzy, you are too hard on us. I’m telling 
her,” she said to me, “that she ought to come 
out of her tub. She’s too nice to be Diogenes. 
Do persuade her — for I must fly. I’m sure I 
am late for a dozen things.” She kissed Lizzy 
on both cheeks, nodded happily to me and em- 
barked for Cythera in her victoria. 

I came back to Lizzy, who had not moved. 
“No comfort there?” I asked. She stared 


IN AND OUT OF THE HOUSE 89 


with hard eyes at the carpet. Then she said, 
“No, none. But she likes talking to me about 
her affairs. She has troubles of her own.” 
Then she stopped — to break out again in an- 
other place. “She is one for men. Nothing 
else does her any good.” 

I was rather shocked, though it was very true. 
“You are very hard on her.” 

“Oh,” said Lizzy, “I don’t mean anything 
bad. But I think she’d do wrong if there was 
no other way.” 

“Kindness is really her fault,” I urged. 
“She can’t refuse the people who seek her. 
You don’t believe that she is in love with Main- 
waring f” 

“No,” she said, “I don’t — nor he with her. 
That makes it worse, I think.” It certainly 
did. 

Meantime Lady Whitehaven, really in love at 
last, and too deeply so to know how far she was 
sunk, had thoroughly alarmed Lord Gerald’s 
mother, the Dowager. That keen-eyed old 
party immediately took steps to remove her 
darling from the lioness. A mission was ar- 
ranging for Madrid to treat about some ques- 
tion of Tangier. That was her chance. Lord 


90 


MAINWARING 


j was appointed Envoy-Extraordinary, and 

we heard presently that Gerald Gorges was to 
go with him. It was a step towards eminence, 
and there was nothing to be said. Lady White- 
haven pressed the thorn into her bosom, and 
smiled at grief. Her bright eyes betrayed her ; 
it was a humid glitter. I know that she saw 
him off at Victoria — and then took the Dowager 
home with her to lunch. Marvellous creatures, 
women are. 


VII 


THE FREE LANCER 

I AM not a politician myself, and have never 
been a member of Parliament, so that I feel 
quite incompetent to say how Mainwaring 
gradually edged himself into the position he oc- 
cupied. 

Bill Birks, M.P., a thoroughly good fellow, 
though rather comic in his admiration of him- 
self, confessed that he didn’t understand it. 
“What the House wants from us chaps is the 
facts,” he said. “It don’t look to us for flow- 
ery speech. Now Mainwaring, without being 
flowery, is what I call a literary feller. His 
sentences have middles and endings. And they 
have sense in them, though he can wrap it up 
like Hardman. But he scolds the House — and 
they stand it. He plays the fool — and they 
laugh. He never laughs himself. And he is 
seldom too long. That’s a great thing. You 
mustn’t be long, and you must have something 
to say. Besides, they know, bless you, that he’s 
got all Durham behind him. Look what he did 

91 


92 


MAINWARING 


at Culgaith. Look what he did with that crowd 
on the Embankment. The House knows that 
Main waring ’s a dangerous card. We aren’t 
afraid of him — that’s not our way. But we 
know he can do what he says. ’ ’ 

From the first, I understand, he sat aloof 
from either party, and from the first had very 
few political friends. He had enemies, of his 
own choice, in abundance. Mr. Bentivoglio was 
the first of them — the Hamburg rat, as he called 
him. Being an Irishman, you might have 
thought that he would incline to their party — 
but bless you, not he. “ Dirty scoundrels,” he 
called them, and didn’t care if they knew it. 
He was of Ulster, and was an Orange protestant 
— when it suited him; yet he was not against 
Home Rule. “If they can get it they are worth 
it; leave it so” — was a saying of his. But 
Home Rule was a long way off in those days, 
and I am not sure, when it came to the point, 
whether he would have voted for it or not. 

It was odd that a man who made his name by 
mob-leading outside should have made one in 
the House. He started with a strong prejudice 
against him — that’s certain. He was thought 
to be a quack — as he undoubtedly was. There 
were some who detected his method from 


THE FREE LANCER 


93 


the beginning : Lord Whitehaven was one. ‘ ‘ Do 
you see how that chap does it?” he asked me 
once, during a great campaign Mainwaring was 
making, entirely alone, in the Black Country. 
“I do. He doesn’t stop at preaching, or tell- 
ing people how we tread on ’em. Not at all. 
He tells ’em what to do. ‘ Come along,’ he 
booms, ‘and pull their houses about their ears.’ 
That they understand. Talk’s no good ; it’s ac- 
tion they want. Well! off they go together. 
Then at the last minute he switches ’em off like 
a pointsman, and takes ’em into a siding. ‘By 
George, that was a good one!’ they say. And 
so say the beaks when some poor devil comes 
up next assizes for downing a policeman. ‘But 
for Mr. Mainwaring ’s presence of mind a most 
dangerous state of things might have arisen. 
. . .’Do you see? He gets it both ways, any 
time. Sharp chap. ’ ’ 

It was so. It was very much Bill Birks’ 
view of him. The public, it is said, loves to be 
deceived. No doubt it does, for it is always de- 
ceiving itself. After all, Mainwaring himself 
was only the public in an intensive form. If 
he hadn’t taken himself seriously, swallowed 
himself whole, like a horse-ball, he would never 
have taken in his fellow-publicans. On the 


i 


94 


MAIN WARING 


other hand, he was worth swallowing. There ’s 
no doubt about that. As he was fond of saying, 
he had a fire in his belly. There were times 
when he could have ignited the Thames; there 
were times when you may say that he did. Who 
will forget his Westminster Election, and his 
‘ ‘ To H-ll with Privilege ’ ’ ? Nobody who heard 
him — his artful peroration leading up to those 
savage words uttered with something between 
a snarl and a roar; nobody who saw his lean- 
ness, his height, his leonine head, his pallor, his 
jet-black mane and his burning eyes. Privilege 
is an old hack, as often terrassee as you please. 
She has weathered many Westminster Elec- 
tions, from Charles Fox’s onwards. But it 
looked as if she was to have it in the neck that 
time. There was an ugly rush down Parlia- 
ment Street after Main waring ’s speech in the 
Square, which I myself believe nothing could 
have stopped but just what did — Mainwaring 
himself, namely, at the precise moment of time 
when it could have been done. He turned them 
at the very gates of Palace Yard, standing up 
in the chair in which they carried him. He 
didn’t take his hands out of his breeches 
pockets — how rarely he did! — but he jerked his 
head the way he wished to be carried, and his 


THE FREE LANCER 


95 


great forelock flew out like a flag. “To the 
right, my lads, bear to the right !” And they 
did — God knows why. He told me afterwards 
that at that moment he hadn’t a ghost of a no- 
tion where they were to go, or what he was to say 
when he was put down — somewhere. That was 
one of the many moments when he could have 
done what he liked — from commanding an army 
in the field to squaring the circle. Yet that 
night, as I happen to know, he had four-and- 
sixpence in his pocket, and was in debt £4,000. 
It was that particular feat which earned for 
Richard Denzil Blaise Mainwaring the inter- 
pretation of his initials which he loved, and 
wore like the rosette of the Legion of Honour: 
R.D.B. ; Richard-Damn-to-Blazes some wag 
called him, and it stuck. Mainwaring saw to 
that. Luckily too for him, his head of a black 
panther, his leanness and length were grist 
for the caricaturists’ mill. They turned out 
R.D.B. ’s like sausages at Chicago. At the 
Westminster Election walking-sticks were sold 
in hundreds, where his forelock was the handle. 
The forelock and the sunken eyes under great 
shaggs of brow were the features which hit the 
popular pencil. 

But all this forensic frippery did nothing to 


96 


MAINWARING 


advance him in the House, where, it was never 
disguised, the party- Whips were excessively 
bored with him. He would not be counted on, 
and, what was worse, he inspired Coward and 
the one or two others who were on the fringe 
of the opposition with the same independence. 
A very few more of them, and there would have 
been a Labour Party some thirty years before 
the time. As a matter of fact, it pretty soon 
came to be understood that nothing short of the 
last trump would call him into the same lobby 
with Bentivoglio. Therefore, if he voted at all, 
it would be with the opposition. That was 
something; but it was his oratory which noth- 
ing could curb. The Whips, I believe, like to 
have an idea who is going to speak, who will 
answer whom, and so on. But Mainwaring was 
incalculable, because speaking, with him, was a 
matter of emotion. When he was moved he 
was irrepressible, and simply magnificent. If 
he was speaking by arrangement, by design, by 
calculation or what-not, as like as not he made 
a mess of it. “Me dear man,” he told me once, 
“when a thing fires me I am omniscient. The 
Universe unrolls itself ; I see the stars in their 
courses. You may trust me when you hear 
me then. I cannot be wrong.’ ’ It wasn’t at all 


THE FREE LANCER 


97 


necessary to believe that; all that was wanted 
was that he should believe it — which he un- 
feignedly did. So, consequently, did many 
other people. 

His scorn and abhorrence of Bentivoglio were 
undoubtedly a great gain to the opposition. 
Even old Hardman, who was of the old school 
himself, learned to count upon him. I suppose 
he disapproved of every second word Main- 
waring uttered, but he could not fail to approve 
of its effect. He was occasionally very violent, 
he was often abominably rude; but however 
violent and however rude he was, there was a 
simplicity behind which appealed to the House ’s 
better part. Mainwaring was not unpopular 
with the House itself — on the contrary, he was 
not only always heard, but he was cheered on 
rising and cheered when he sat down. The 
word went about when he rose, and the House 
filled. 

Some of his good things got about, and (as 
generally happens) some other people’s good 
things accrued to him as he went on. I remem- 
ber one which delighted everybody for a week. 
Criticizing Sir Nicholas Usedom, who was then 
Attorney General and remained, none the less, 
the solemn sepulchre he had always been, 


98 


MAIN WARING 


Mainwaring said that he had “all the qualities 
of the kitchen poker without its occasional 
warmth.’ ’ Whether it was his own or not, 
doesn’t matter. It was a delightful thing to 
have said. And he was very clever, too, in 
turning an offensive thing into a ridiculous 
thing. “The Right Honourable gentleman” — 
this was of Birkett, the lethargic Secretary of 
State, goaded at last into a Bill — “stimulated 
by the genial and unaccustomed warmth of his 
leader’s praise, now skips here and there over 
the length and breadth of the Constitution like 
the fleas in his bed” — there was a roar at this 
outrageous sally, and Mainwaring made one of 
his most impressive pauses. “I beg your par- 
don, Mr. Speaker, for a breach of decorum. I 
should have said, and intended to say, like the 
fleas in my bed.” He enjoyed himself, and 
was allowed to. 

He made very light of his triumphs, such as 
they were, and valued much more the adoration 
he received from his miners in Durham and 
dockers at the Tower. “It’s nothing at all, just 
nothing at all,” he told me. “I’m feeling for 
my feet. When I’ve bottomed that pond I’ll 
stir up something from the deeps. But give 
me time.” On another occasion he said, “It’s 


THE FREE LANCER 


99 


in me — it’s not myself, but the demon inside of 
me. I can’t stop it, and don’t want. But let 
me tell you this: a man who can lead a horde 
of starving men and women can lead the House 
of Commons where he pleases. The force is the 
same, but it needs different application. The 
House is not a mob, because every man in it, 
by the fact of his being there, knows that he is 
somebody. My business is to convince such a 
man that I am two-bodies, his better self and 
my own self. Do that, and you ’re made. ’ ’ He 
seemed to have no doubt that that was a simple 
matter. 

He was four or five years in the House be- 
fore he took any definite line, except where 
Labour was concerned. There he was very 
wary about disclosing his hand. But when the 
General Election of 18 — was held, and the 
Liberals came back triumphant, every one be- 
lieved that he would be found a place. He was 
not, however. He found one for himself. But 
I shall come to that. 

He made more money as he went on, but he 
also spent more. Lizzy had given up the 
struggle in the only way really open to her. 
She refused absolutely to have any more from 
me, and would have repaid me what little I had 


100 


MAINWARING 


lent her by a forced loan from her people if I 
would have had it. I satisfied my feelings by 
agreeing to Mainwaring’s demands whenever I 
thought that he intended to pay bills with them. 
I told him so plainly, and he took it quite sim- 
ply when once he understood that I meant what 
I said. 

“My poor girl — yes, yes. I shall take it as 
a kindness to her. You may trust to my 
honour, my dear fellow.” 

“Credit her integrity, Mainwaring, ’ ’ I said. 
“Remember what you took her from.” 

“A mixen,” he cried, staring out. 

“Not at all. You know that. You took her 
from a life where everything was paid for be- 
fore it was used; and worked for before it could 
be paid for.” 

“A life without a future — without a past. 
A life of animals. But I’ll make it up to her/ ’ 

“You won’t. She doesn’t want what you 
want.” He knew it very well, but it angered 
him that I did too. 

“A man must fulfil his destiny. No woman 
can stop him. I tell you I have these marion- 
nettes by the jig-strings. Have patience and 
you shall see them dance.” 

“I am not your spiritual director,” I said. 


THE FREE LANCER 


101 


“It is nothing to me whether you dance to Lady 
Whitehaven or she to you ; but it is in my mind 
to tell you that I think your wife’s standard a 
higher one than yours. She fulfils the laws of 
her being ; you wish to transcend yours. There 
are two ways of doing that, of which, it seems 
to me, you have chosen the wrong.” 

He gloomed at me with reproachful eyes. 
“You never believed in me — but you shall.” 

“Oh,” I said, “I think you might set the 
Thames on fire.” 

1 1 That will be something, ’ ’ he said, very much 
gratified. 

“It will be very little indeed compared to 
Lizzy’s obedience.” 

He stared at me open-mouthed, then turned 
away. “The girl has bewitched you. Well, 
she bewitched me, in a bad hour. She’s a 
beautiful woman.” 

“She’s prepared to live beautifully,” I said. 
“I wish you’d help her.” 

Here he began to jump about, his hands 
plunged deep. He jigged from one foot to the 
other. “ I ’ve got work to do — work to do. She 
must help. ’ ’ 

But in truth, by this time he despaired of her 
help. I think that he had done so from the be- 


102 


MAINWARING 


ginning. Otherwise, how was it that he never 
let any one know that he was married? Bill 
Birks didn’t know it, Coward didn’t know it; 
the Duchess didn’t know it. Lady Whitehaven 
did. He told her everything. From his point 
of view it was the only thing to do, perhaps. 
Lizzy would not go into the high world; he 
refused to take her into any other. He was not 
here to make a Labour Party, though he in- 
tended Labourers to believe that he was. He 
was here to make himself a place. He told me 
that he intended “to climb into Downing Street 
on the miners’ backs.” He told no one else, I 
believe; but Lizzy knew it, had known it all 
along, and she thought it horrible. That was 
her reason — one of her reasons, anyhow — for 
washing her hands of his affairs. 

It was wonderful to me that she knew so much 
— for assuredly she did not have it from him. 
When I knew her so well that she could talk 
to me freely, without forethought or after- 
thought, she told me what I had half guessed 
already, that it was he who had inflamed the 
miners of Culgaith into striking when they did. 
True, they gained by it in the end ; but you can 
see how the conviction of her husband’s cheat 
must have taken all the heart out of so simple 


THE FREE LANCER 


103 


and honest a creature as Lizzy. She saw, she 
endured herself, those weeks of suffering, knew 
that they were needless, knew that they were 
unjust. Even if they had been just, Mainwar- 
ing’s hands were not clean. 

It may have been that which turned his 
drudge into his judge. I am sure it was that 
which decided her to have no share in his climb- 
ing feats in West End mansions. She knew 
what he was there for. He climbed poles — for 
buns. She had all the worker’s scorn for short- 
cuts. 


yin 


MONTAGU SQUARE 

I AM not very sure when the Mainwarings 
moved from Chelsea to Tyburn and en- 
trenched themselves in a furnished house in 
Montagu Square, but believe it was shortly 
after that General Election I spoke of when the 
Liberals came in with a thumping majority and 
Mainwaring, if he had made a sign, could have 
got an Under-Secretaryship or a lordship of the 
Treasury. When I say that the Mainwarings 
moved, I mean, of course, that Mainwaring 
moved, and when I say that they entrenched, I 
mean that he did; for my poor Lizzy was in- 
capable of it. You might as well have expected 
her to make an ingle-nook in the Crystal Palace. 
[But Mainwaring was delighted with it, and 
spent other peopled money like wine to keep 
himself aglow. It was vast, with much pale 
paint and gliding. I never saw a house look 
so uninhabited. The drawing-room was full of 
huge looking-glasses. It might do for a crowd; 
for one or two it was impossible. Lizzy vowed 

104 


MONTAGU SQUARE 105 

that it was haunted, and that she couldn’t use 
it. It was of course haunted by her own sad 
face, which she saw from every angle whither- 
soever she turned. It wanted two great fires 
all day — and didn’t get them. So it had a 
mildewed look, and in the winter the frost 
settled into it like a blight. Then there was a 
great dining-room full of heavy mahogany and 
prints of one’s grandfather’s time: Wellington 
and Blucher meeting on the field of Waterloo; 
Coming of Age in the Olden Days ; The Monarch 
of the Glen, and a still life of sportsmen, stags, 
a boat, some Highlanders, dogs and dead fish. 
Mainwaring saw himself presiding at a political 
dinner — in fact, there was to be one. I was 
asked, and was coming. So was the Prime 
Minister, it seemed. There were to have been 
ladies, but I’m coming to them. Lizzy heard 
her husband tell me all this, or she may have 
heard. She looked a frozen woman — Lot’s wife 
with the salt in her veins ; Niobe feeling the grip 
of the stone. Afterwards he took me to his 
library, and showed me his books. A great 
many of them were real books — all, I think, to 
the eye-level; I saw The Quarterly Review 
and Annual Register. But above that they 
were shams and unabashed, without so much 


106 


MAIN WARING 


as titles printed on them, or Vol. I and Vol. H. 
I found it all uncommonly bleak, and thought it 
a mistake — hut he was as happy as a child over 
it. He kept me there for an hour or more while 
he talked, and I went away without sight of 
Lizzy. 

I called as soon as I decently could, and found 
her in the “housekeeper’s room,” so pointedly 
designated by the maid who opened the door. 
“Madam is in the housekeeper’s room,” she 
said — to mark her disapproval of such goings 
on, I suppose. 

I thought she was quite right, I must say. It 
was the smallest and dingiest room I had seen, 
but at least it looked like a human habitation. 
Lizzy’s work-basket was open on the table. 
Her birds were in the window. There were 
her flowers, her portraits of her father and 
mother and married sister. And there, above 
all, was my rueful beauty in her black, pale as 
the moon in a cloudy sky. She blushed, 
smiled and rose. I took her hand for ^moment. 

“You shun your fine drawing-room?” 

She laughed. “Yes, it’s much too fine for 
me. I feel like a shrimp in the Pacific. Be- 
sides, I’m the housekeeper now — and plenty to 
do, I can tell you. ’ ’ 


MONTAGU SQUARE 107 

I didn't take in what she meant by that, and 
talked of something else. Presently I per- 
suaded her to take a turn in the Park. She was 
delighted. “Oh, I shall love it. You don't 
know how I long for the air. But when I've 
done my shopping in the morning there seems 
nowhere to go. I think I had rather stifle than 
go alone, unless I have something to do." 

‘ ‘ But why should you go alone ! ' ' She didn 't 
allow herself to be serious. 

“Oh, I can't pick up with anybody now, you 
see!" 

That was the kind of thing she used to say 
which confounded my understanding and my 
utterance at once. The humility of the thought 
and the memories it betrayed broke me down. 
Such a woman to “pick up" with some one, or 
any one ! But they do it, you know. Beauty, 
nobility, have no prerogative. A woman is a 
woman, a perquisite of the hardy eye. 

We went into the Park at the Marble Arch 
and walked down the Avenue. A balmy eve- 
ning of late April, with the trees just breaking 
into golden leaf. We walked slowly and 
silently, as intimates may without discomfort. 
We had become intimate friends, on my own 
intense desire; on her side, she had slipped 


108 


MAINWARINGr 


into intimacy unawares. Poor girl, she had no 
other friend except the servants in their new 
house. But those two were really her friends. 
She had known the cook before she married, 
she told me, and had made a friend of the other 
girl. She would have no disguises there. 

But I think she trusted me altogether, and I 
know that I was more useful to her than her 
servants. I suppose, indeed, that she must 
have known what my feelings for her were. 
They say that women always do. Not a word 
had been said, of course — I had been much too 
careful to kindle dangerous fire in either of us. 
Yet, speaking for myself, a great peace pos- 
sessed me at this time; and speaking for her, 
I believe she relied wholly upon me. We lived 
in the present, we lived from hour to hour ; we 
deprived Mainwaring of nothing, and expected 
nothing of him but what we had. It was a 
strange relationship, yet (speaking again for 
myself) it gave me sheer happiness. As my 
love had begun by respect, so I did not bum for 
the possession of her. If I had found myself in 
such a state of mind I believe I should have left 
her immediately. 

Presently she took my arm, and I knew what 
that meant. 


MONTAGU SQUARE 109 

“Well — ?” I said. 

“I want to tell you something.” 

“I know that you do.” 

“I have made up my mind about Montagu 
Square. You see, I had to. He wants to have 
company there. He says that it is necessary 
now, and that he can afford it.” 

“Can he, do you think ?” 

She sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure 
he is deep in debt — but it is far beyond me now. 
Thousands, I daresay. People help him — the 
Duchess, he says, and I know that there are 
people in the city. He has a great scheme — 
he won’t tell me what it is. But about his 
parties, he wanted me to receive the people and 
sit at the table.” 

“Well, my dear, of course he did.” 

“Oh, but — ” She pressed closer — “I told 
him that I would never do it. It made him 
furious; and then I was angry too. He said 
that Lady Whitehaven would help me.” 

“So she would, you know. You don’t mind 
that? You know that you like her.” 

“Yes, I like her. I’m sorry for her. But I 
won’t do it.” 

6 1 What will you do, then ? Hide in the house- 
keeper ’s room?” 


110 


MAINWARING- 


“ I said I would do whichever he liked — stay 
there or wait at table.’ ’ She felt me start; 
looked at me, and then became vehement. 4 ‘ No- 
body knows who I am, so why shouldn’t I? I 
can do that well, and I should feel I was being 
useful. You wouldn’t mind? You won’t stop 
me ? ’ ’ She was all alight with her idea. 

I told her that I saw no harm in it. It might 
prevent Mainwaring having ladies to dinner, 
though I didn’t see why it should. But, being 
what he was, he would most likely find it too 
much trouble. “I see your point, of course,” 
I said, “and only one practical difficulty occurs 
to me. If you are going to wait at the table, 
nothing will bring me to sit at it. He has asked 
me to the first of them, you know. To meet 
the Prime Minister.” 

That troubled her. “You wouldn’t come?” 

“No,” I said. “I couldn’t do it. I should 
be jumping up to help you all the time. As 
things are now I can’t let you wait upon me.” 

“Don’t you see — ?” She stopped there, with 
a sigh. Then she said it. “Don’t you see that 
I should love it?” 

“My dear,” I said, “I believe I do. Now I 
want you to see that I should hate it. I think 
it would be one of the most beautiful sights in 


MONTAGU SQUARE 111 

the world — but it isn’t one for me to see.” 

She bent her head and was silent, thinking it 
all out. Then she said, “Very well, I won’t he 
there. I wish to please you, and want you to 
be there. So I promise.” She looked into my 
face, and what she said made my heart beat. 
“But may I do it when you don’t come?” 

“Oh, Lizzy,” I said, “how could I have the 
heart to stop you when you ask me like that?” 
She pressed my arm, and then took her hand 
away from it altogether. I had my own ideas 
about it all. Mainwaring would no doubt be 
gratified to have his wife waiting behind his 
chair, especially if Lady Whitehaven was beside 
him. That was just the sort of thing which 
ministered to his vanity. 

The oddity was that, although I felt sure that 
she had better leave the man altogether than 
stay on as his servant, I couldn’t tell her so. 
She wouldn’t have heard me out. Nothing but 
violence on his part would have driven her out 
of his house. That was her instinct. 

We talked presently of Mainwaring ’s pro- 
spects, which she thought poorly of. “He had 
made a false step,” she said, “and is going 
to waste himself. He is going to earn money, 
and is much better without it. Directly he loses 


112 


MAIN WARING 


Ms freedom he will lose his force. Yon 11 see.” 

I didn’t think that he had ever pretended to 
he disinterested, and said so. “He means to 
make a great position, and has never meant 
anything else.” 

“Yes,” she said, “and he has one. If he 
takes office he will lose it.” 

“No; he’s clever enough not to do that.” 

She smiled sadly, but wisely. “He isn’t so 
clever as you think. I know him very well. 
He isn’t clever enough to deny himself what he 
wants. ’ ’ 

“But, my dearest girl, what he wants is 
what he is aiming at. He may be mistaken ; but 
if he gets what he wants, he succeeds, don ’t you 
see?” She wouldn’t have it. 

“No, no. He wants to be a great man, and 
he might be one if he would stand alone. If 
he takes office he won’t stand alone. He’ll be 
one of a crowd.” 

“A very small crowd.” 

“He’ll be nothing,” she said; “the least of 
them, and the worst — because he will have sold 
Mmself . ’ ’ 

I was struck silent by her clear vehemence, 
and she was silent too. But she was the one 
who broke it. “.When he was courting me he 


MONTAGU SQUAKE 113 

talked to me all day long, and I thought he 
would be a great man. He was all for the 
poor then. Now he is climbing on their backs/ ’ 
This could not be denied. On the way home 
she said a startling thing. Lady Whitehaven 
was mentioned, and Lizzy without passion re- 
vealed her mind. “Lady Whitehaven! She 
has ruined him — and he will ruin her. ’ ’ 

“Don’t say that,” I begged of her; “and 
don’t think it. I have you to think of in it 
all.” 

“Oh, me!” she said. “I don’t count in it. 
He thinks he can do as he likes. He can’t be 
denied. What he wants he must have. That 
is where the trouble is. She will have to deny 
him. The young lord will make her. There 
will be dreadful trouble. ’ ’ 

There was no answer to that, unless one was 
prepared with a remedy, which I wasn’t. 

I walked back with her to the house as it 
was getting dusk, and found her husband there. 
As usual, he applauded me for taking Lizzy 
abroad. “If it weren’t for you,” he said, “my 
poor girl would be a nun.” She had left me 
with him in his “library,” so I took my chance. 

“Better that she should be a nun, my dear 
man, than parlour-maid in her own house. 


114 


MAINWABING 


That’s what has been arranged, she tells me.” 
He would have blustered me down ; but I stuck 
to my line. I will always say for him that 
he never shirked a difficulty. 

“Begob,” he said, after a brisk interchange, 
“you may be right. I never gave it a thought, 
to be plain with you. But we’ll soon settle it.” 
He rang the bell, and was punctually answered. 
“Ask Mrs. Mainwaring to be so good as to step 
in here.” 

She came and stood in the doorway, looking 
at us guardedly. I felt uncomfortable. 

“Come here, my poor Lizzy,” he said, and she 
came slowly towards us. He put his arm round 
her waist and drew her nearer. “My darling, 
our friend here has been hammering into my 
skull that I shall be treating you ill at the din- 
ner-party. I don ’t say he ’s right or wrong. I 
simply say, Leave it to her. Now, for the last 
time, will you sit at the foot of the table, my 
dear, or will you wait at it, as you thought at 
first? Don’t hurry, my love. Let us know 
which it is to be. If you choose to be hostess, 
as you have every right to be, you shall have the 
best silk gown money can buy — and jewelry, too, 
if you care for it. But I’m thinking that a 
neck like yours can do very well without it.” 


MONTAGU SQUARE 115 

She wasn’t long over it. She neither met my 
eyes, nor sought his. “I have chosen already. 
I shall wait at table — but not next month.” 

Mainwaring turned triumphant to me. 
“You see. She knows what to do.” 

I bowed. “I have nothing to say against her 
choice. It is obvious that she knows what to do. 
I can only regret that you don’t.” 

He tossed his great head up. “You little 
know me if you think I should dare interfere 
with a lady’s inclinations!” 

I didn’t ask him why he had a dinner-party at 
all, if he could only have it at the cost of his 
wife’s humiliation. 

“I’m sorry that I said anything. But Lizzy 
knows how I feel about such things.” Then 
she looked at me, with wide-open eyes, as if 
asking for charity. 

“Yes, I know how you feel. It was kind of 
you, but, believe me, I can’t do anything else.” 
Then she left us. 

Mainwaring plunged his hands. “They are 
queer! It’s well for me we have no Woman’s 
Suffrage. You can lead men like sheep — but 
you must be a woman to know women. My 
friend, little as I know of them, I know more 
than you do.” 


116 


MAIN WARIN Gr 


“I am studying men at present/ ’ I said 
shortly. “I’ve not got to the bottom yet.” 

He didn’t take the trouble to answer me. He 
just nodded me away without ceremony, and 
turned to his letters. I left him and went out 
into the hall unaccompanied. At the foot of the 
stairs was Lizzy. 

Her colour was high. “You aren’t angry 
with me? You know that really you agree.” 

“Yes, my dear, I agree with you — but not 
with him. If you won’t appear at his dinner- 
parties except behind his chair, he ought not 
to give dinner-parties here at all. That’s the 
real way out.” 

She dropped her eyes and shivered ever so 
slightly. “All men aren’t like you,” she said. 

“All men don’t know you,” I answered. 
“I’m angry with Mainwaring.” 

“Don’t give him up,” she said. 

“I’ll never give you up, anyhow.” 

She looked at me — her eyes, clear grey-green, 
were full of faith. 

“Don’t talk about it. Let us be as happy as 
we can.” 

“As we dare, ’ ’ I said. She shut her eyes and 
shivered again. 


MONTAGU SQUARE 117 

“ Don’t talk about it. I can’t. Good-bye.” 

I didn’t dare take her hand, anyhow, not 
knowing what I might not have done with it. 
So I left her. 


IX 


AFTER DINNER 

T HE dinner-party was as solemn and stupid . 

as such things must be where the guests 
know that they are conferring a favour and the 
host, knowing it too, resents it. It lacked spon- 
taneity and cordiality; it was ill-balanced, and 
I should say did Mainwaring more harm than 
what he was pleased to consider good. Main- 
waring *s success lay in defying the lightning, or 
perhaps in making a rival storm of his own — 
it comes to the same thing. He was entirely 
without the social gift; his gaiety was hollow, 
and chiefly mockery; he was anxious to dis- 
turb, not to please. He needed fiercely the sym- 
pathy of women, but could only get it by 
frightening them. I know Lady Whitehaven 
was afraid of him; I think he scared even the 
effrontery of the Duchess. The only woman 
whom he could not move either to admiration, 
hope, or love, and who was never frightened 
of him was his peasant-bom Lizzy. 

It was because he wanted Lady Whitehaven 
118 


AFTER DINNER 


119 


there, and because she wouldn’t come alone, that 
he had ladies there at all. He only had three 
to his eight men; but three was a crowd if he 
had the lady of his desire. The Duchess came — 
“for fun,” as she said (and I hope she got it) ; 
Mrs. Hardman accompanied the Prime Minis- 
ter; and then there was Lady Whitehaven. 
She was practically hostess, though her sister 
took the edge off that anomaly. I forget what 
we had to eat ; but Yipond saw to all that, and 
Yipond had a name to keep. How Mainwaring 
paid for it, or if he ever did, I didn’t enquire. 
All I know about that is that when he left the 
house in the manner which I have to relate, it 
was I who tipped the major-domo and the 
chef. 

It is hard to say offhand if such absurd shows 
as this ever profit a man on the make. It is 
so easy to confuse spending money with prog- 
ress, and a common fallacy that the more you 
spend the more you make. Consider this party 
for a moment: Hardman must have known 
that he was condescending, the Duchess must 
have known that she was playing; and you 
would have said that Lady Whitehaven must 
have known that she was playing with fire. If 


120 


MAINWARING 


she didn’t, by Jove, she found out. I never 
saw a man so publicly and avowedly in posses- 
sion of another man’s wife before. She could 
not, of course, sit by him, though he wts aw- 
fully sulky about it and scowled at her down the 
table whenever he had time to remember his 
grief. There are some conventions too strong 
even for Mainwaring’s will. But that made 
her seem still more the Hausfrau, and secretly 
I’ll swear he was pleased. In every other re- 
spect he treated her like wife or mistress, 
ordered her about, signed to her what she was 
to do, kept her Greuze eyes upon him perpetu- 
ally in appeal or enquiry; and afterwards, when 
the men went upstairs, took her into a corner 
and hectored her in vehement whispers, like a 
lover, leaving all the rest to shift for themselves. 
That, thanks to the Duchess, they immediately 
did. She v as a favourite with the P. M. — and, 
after all, she was a duchess, and a fashionable 
duchess. She made no secret — why should she ? 
“Oh, those two are hopeless !” she said to Hard- 
man, brought Yerschoyle up with a lift of the 
eyebrow to take charge of Mrs. Hardman, then 
turned to the P. M. and kept him amused. As 
for the ruck, they went hang; and as for me, 
I went to see Lizzy in the housekeeper’s room. 


AFTER DINNER 


121 


She looked at me in a guarded, serious, care- 
ful way, only a flicker of a smile upon her lips, 
her beautiful eyes in cloud. I knew that she 
was expecting me, that my presence could com- 
fort her, that for a time at least she could for- 
get that she was a stranger, and a sojourner in 
a strange land. She had a hook open on her 
lap ; I don’t think she had been reading it. She 
liked me to read to her, but was not naturally 
a reader. She was her mother’s child, inspired, 
as she was built, for maternity, the care of a 
house, the comfort and solace of a man. She 
should have been the light of a man’s f ^ays, the 
joy and peace of his nights. Here she was noth- 
ing, and knew it. It was much to her that I 
loved her — and all the world to me. 

Lizzy was a woman with whom one could re- 
main silent without gene , imbibing her benig- 
nant femininity through the pores, as it were. 
She radiated peace, she was as comfortable, and 
beautiful too, as a wood fire. After I had 
sketched with a light hand the order of events 
upstairs, we sat quietly together without talk, 
except now and again for a murmur which 
might utter a passing thought. I believe that 
I comforted her; I know that she enriched me. 
To love her, as some one said of some one else, 


122 


MAINWARING 


was a liberal education. One could at least cor- 
rect one’s standard of values. 

A light finger at the door announced Lady 
Whitehaven, whose rosy face and laughing, kind 
eyes peeped in upon us before the rest of her 
shimmering person. I had been expecting her 
for some time, knowing that her kindness of 
heart would insist upon her effort to show*Lizzy 
that everything was for the best. “May I come 
for a peep at you? How snug you are here. 
You shy bird, you should have plucked up your 
courage. The grandees behaved like lambs, 
and it was all delightful but for your being 
away. The table — lovely. Your doing, of 
course. And your man behaved beautifully — 
for him, you know.” 

That was too optimistic for me, sore with 
Mainwaring as I was. “Oh, come,” I said, 
“really, as a man of integrity, I can’t pass that. 
Didn’t you hear Mrs. Hardman? ‘My husband 
is speaking, Mr. Mainwaring,’ she said.” 

She laughed with confusion — quite pretty. 
She leaned forward, half-shut her eyes, nodded 
and whispered the words, “Yes, I did. Wasn’t 
it awful?” 

“It might have been if Mainwaring hadn’t 
been so taken aback that he was robbed of 


AFTER DINNER 


123 


speech. He opened his month to roar — but the 
vocal chords were appalled. No sound came.” 

“It was too bad of the P. M. ; but of course 
one knows him. Who wanted to know about the 
Amalekites, ’ ’ this was to Lizzy, “when your 
man was going to tell us about the boilermakers ’ 
strike? He told me all about it afterwards. 
Will he go up there and help them, Lizzy ?” 

Lizzy said that they had asked him. “I had 
much rather we went up there than stayed 
here,” she said. “We shall do no good here 
to anybody.” 

There was no bitterness in her tone, but we 
both knew that she meant it. I think, too, that 
each one of us knew why Mainwaring would not 
go up to Jarrow. Lady Whitehaven grew seri- 
ous at once. “You really think that? But, you 
see, for his career he must be in touch with all 
the great people. And he does love it so, and 
he is so comic about it.” 

That was an error of judgment; and it didn’t 
carry the thing on. Perhaps Lizzy had no sense 
of humour, and in such a case she might be ex- 
cused, I think. I thought I might speak for her, 
so represented that he might be very comic to 
Lady Whitehaven and yet not advance his af- 
fairs. “The P. M.,” I said, “won’t put him 


124 


M AIN W ARIN G 


into anything for his dinners, but because he 
can’t help himself. Mainwaring has only to be 
nuisance enough with his boilermakers or 
cotton-spinners, and he’ll get all he wants. Do 
tell him that if he neglects his trade unions he ’s 
done for.” 

Lizzy spoke now, quietly, but as clearly as if 
she saw them. “They believe in him. They 
stand in the lanes talking about him. The 
women write to him about their troubles.” 

Lady Whitehaven looked unhappy, and no 
doubt was so, for she had a good heart. 

“Oh, I am sure he will never betray them — 
and so are you, Lizzy. Tell me that you are. 
But you must give him time. You know that 
he has a great coup in his hands ? ’ ’ 

We didn’t, and she evidently did. That con- 
fused her. “He happened to ask me what I 
thought. It just bubbled out of him. He knew 
that I knew all the people, you see. No, I won’t 
tell you a word about it. You’ll have it all 
from him so much better than I could tell you. 
It will be very exciting.” After that she de- 
voted herself to charming Lizzy out of her 
solemnity, talking mostly about her children. 
The girl, Lady Mary, was to be presented this 
year, it seemed — and one was to be confirmed 


AFTER DINNER 


125 


at school. She was perfectly natural, and did 
it very well. Lizzy could always talk about 
children, and presently contributed shy anec- 
dotes of her brothers and sisters as comparisons 
and illustrations. The lady played up, and we 
had a happy conversation, in which my part 
was to be touched almost to tears. It interested 
me vastly to watch those two — and see the 
high lady courting the peasant woman. 

I don’t know how long it may have lasted; 
but it had a shocking interruption. Mainwar- 
ing came in upon us. He had been drinking 
and looked very wild. He took no notice what- 
ever of Lizzy or me, but bent his ragged brows 
upon the poor lady whose efforts to avoid the 
appearance of strain were pathetic in their 
gallantry. They were rather like sheltering 
from a thunderstorm under a Japanese para- 
sol. 

“They have all gone. Your sister asked for 
you. I lied about you, said you had gone on 
somewhere.” 

“Oh, I know. I ought to have been in half- 
a-dozen places. But Lizzy — ” 

“I wished for you. You ought not to have 
left me.” 


126 


MAIN WARIN Gr 


“Really, Mainwaring — ” 1 began, but be took 
no more notice of me than if I had been the wind 
in the chimney. 

“For what it is worth yon have had my de- 
votion. You know what my feeling is. What, 
good heavens, are these people to me unless you 
are there to give them any significance? You 
are like the sun which gives life to dead earth. 
You are the moon above black waters, gilding 
them to — ” He had not the slightest suspicion 
that he was talking rank melodrama — and I 
don’t believe that Lady Whitehaven had either. 

She had risen now, poor woman, not able to 
pretend any longer. She had a keen sense of 
fun, but I doubt if she saw how comic all this 
might be. You need to be spectator, not actor, 
if you are to be diverted. 

“You mustn’t be so complimentary, you 
know. It is very bad for me. And really I 
must fly — ” He grew hot and very wild. 

“I see that I weary you. I am to be thrown 
over — idle lumber. But you may play once too 
often. We must understand each other, Rose.” 
I don’t think either of us knew that he called 
her Rose. Rose herself was horribly fright- 
ened. She had turned to Lizzy, who, with no 
art at her command, could not hide her di&- 


AFTER DINNER 


127 


comfort. She submitted, however, to the kindly 
hands, even to the kiss of her unfortunate guest. 

“Good-bye, my dear. It has been delightful 
to have this little chat. I must really go.” 
She nodded to me and turned to the door. 
Mainwaring stalked after her and we saw no 
more of him. Whether they left together, or 
whether he pursued her in a cab I never knew. 

Lizzy sat down again. I stood near her for 
a little. There was nothing to be said unless 
I said all — and that I dared not do. At the 
same time I felt that it was necessary to cool 
down the temperature. 

“He’s boring her to death; I’m very sorry 
for her,” I said. 

Lizzy could not answer. She never had any 
of the small change of talk. 

I said again, “She won’t stand much more of 
it. She’ll get rid of him altogether.” 

Then she said, 1 i She won ’t be able to. He is 
treating her now as he treated me at first. ’ ’ 

“My dear,” I said to her, “does it hurt you? 
Do you love him?” 

She shook her head. “No, no. You know 
I don’t. But it is insulting — I am offended. I 
am his wife — and — ” She could not go on. 

“Lizzy, I ought to go. But I can’t bear to 


128 


M AINWARIN Gr 


leave you.” That was forced out of me. She 
showed me her clear, true eyes. 

“Yes, go now. Don’t be worried about me,. 
This is only a little worse than it .has been for 
a long time. I know that things like it go on 
every day — but I haven’t been there. Do go 
now. ’ ’ 

“What shall you do when I have gone!” 

“I shall go to bed. What else could I do?” 

“Lizzy, may I say something?” 

She looked scared. “No, nothing, nothing. 
Please don’t. I mustn’t listen. Besides — ” 

“What?” 

“ — I know it. Now go.” She gave me her 
hand; I kissed it, and went upstairs. There 
I found Vipond’s myrmidons in shirt-sleeves 
dismantling the rooms. They had to be ap- 
peased. They enquired of me rather anxiously 
for Mainwaring. I saw them off the place be- 
fore I left it — left it bare and echoing, with the 
most beautiful woman in England of less con- 
sideration in it than a toothless old caretaker 
with an untied bonnet on her dusty hair. There 
was nothing to be done. 


X 


LADY WHITEHAVEN IN WOE 

I WAS in the most painful position in which 
lover could be. The woman I loved I dared 
not comfort, the woman I honoured I must see 
dishonoured. I had no locus standi with her 
husband, none which I could claim with her. 
All the day following I felt her dear hands pull- 
ing at my heartstrings ; yet I might not venture 
to present myself in Montagu Square. There 
must be no flaw upon her quiet perfection, and 
I felt that it would be a flaw if the maid at the 
door put me down as her mistress’s lover. No 
doubt I was a fool, because, according to my 
own standard of conduct, you were what you 
intended to be, and not what you appeared to 
the world. But Lizzy did not see things like 
that. In her mind conduct must be as scrupu- 
lous as the thought which moved it. She would 
neither do wrong, nor seem to do it — and, she 
would say, the maid at the door was her equal 
in the world. That was how she treated her,, 
as I knew who had seen them together. The 

129 


130 


MAIN W AE IN G 


servants in the house knew all about her, from 
her own lips, and were entirely on her side. It 
was rather extraordinary, I thought, how ex- 
actly Lizzy kept the balance between mistress- 
ship of the house and companionship with her 
maids. When Mainwa*ring was away, I know 
'(for she told me) that she lived in the kitchen 
and had her meals in the servants’ hall. She 
took her share of the housework too. She said 
that it kept her healthy and made her happier, 
and I have no doubt of it at all. At the same 
time, so far as I could judge, she suffered no 
encroachments. It wasn’t to be supposed, for 
instance, that she would allow any discussion 
of Mainwaring. That would have been quite 
against Lizzy’s ideas, just as it would have been 
to pretend herself other than she was. Strange, 
contrary, yet logical creature! So open about 
herself, so close about her husband! 

All that added to my perplexities, for it pre- 
vented my seeing her or writing to her. And 
quite as well, very likely, that it did. By this 
time I didn’t pretend to myself that I wasn’t 
in love with her, nor that (if such a thing could 
happen) I shouldn’t be only too happy that she 
should have left Mainwaring altogether. I 
didn ’t work it out in any detail, or I should have 


LADY WHITEHAVEN IN WOE 131 

seen at once that that would only have added 
to our discomfort. She wouldn’t have come 
to me because she had left him, bless you ! She 
would have gone home and kept herself by her 
work of hands and knees. I should have been 
allowed to see her and ache for her. Fine work 
indeed. No, I see it now. So long as he didn’t 
ill-treat her she was better where she was. Ari d 
somehow I never thought that he would do that. 
Nor did he ever. 

I passed a pretty bad week of it, though, and 
so, I imagine, did another fly in Mainwaring’s 
web — I mean her Ladyship. Towards the end 
of it I had a telegram signed, Rose Whitehaven , 
which said, Do dine here tonight quietly, which 
I supposed to imply a desire to pump me of my 
judgment of what had happened in Montagu 
Square. I said that I would go — and I went. 

The house in Cavendish Square was vast, 
with a faded, handsome, French look. Great 
hall, with marble pavement and statues, broad 
stone stair, white-and-gold door, and a huge 
drawing-room with an Aubusson carpet, silk 
hangings, gold chairs and all the rest of it. 
Lady Whitehaven, beautifully dressed, was with 
her pretty, delicate Lady Mary. They looked 
like sisters. A son, Charles, either just leaving 


132 


MAIN WARING 


Eton or just gone to Oxford, slim, sleek and 
good-looking, like all her children ; a young man 
in the navy, called Vyse, and by them Dolly; a 
Miss Jeans or Jaynes, fat, in eyeglasses, a re- 
tainer: that was all. Obviously I was to be 
pumped after dinner. 

She made it go, of course. She was perfectly 
delightful, and brought me into the family in the 
natural, easy way her class has, and her class 
only. It was done entirely without effort, with 
complete success. The only thing obvious 
about it was the kind of appeal which her eyes 
now and then made to me to play up to her. 
I could see, in fact, what she asked of me : You 
know that I am consumed by misery ; you know 
what my life has become; you know how my 
heart is tom to pieces — well, won’t you help? 
There must be pretence in a life like mine. 
Good heavens, here are these beloved creatures 
growing up! You don’t mean me to betray 
them, do you? And yet I, their adored mother, 
am in love with one man and persecuted by an- 
other, and simply don’t know which way to turn 
for ease. You are here to help me, don’t you 
see? Keep it up, then. 

Well, I kept it up. It wasn’t at all difficult, 
with such a lead as hers. Young Vyse was 


LADY WHITEHAVEN IN WOE 133 


from the iEgean, which I knew well; the boy 
Charles was going np to Oxford in October; 
Lady Mary said that she liked my poems, and 
Miss Jaynes, I believe, really did like them. 
We did very well indeed. 

It was Lady Mary who brought up Mainwar- 
ing “The Fenian ” they called him in that 
family. The young woman evidently thought 
him a hit. She knew he had been in prison, 
and might go there again. I admitted it, and 
told her that I thought he liked it. She con- 
sidered the answer and me together, and then 
said, “I don’t think you really believe that. I 
think you really mean that you don’t like him” 
The whole table waited for me. I said, “No, 
you are wrong. I ought not to like him, but I 
really do.” And that was absolute truth on 
my part. 

Lady Whitehaven smiled — a faint, rather wan 
smile. “You think him too disorganized, too 
decousu.” 

I didn’t see why I should make any bones 
about what I really thought, so I said, “No. If 
anything, he is rather too well organized. He 
has a system, and sticks to it. He is playing 
rather a deep game.” 

She would have led me on from that, but her 


134 


MAIN WARIN Gr 


daughter broke in. She flushed up, and said 
defiantly, “I think he’s splendid.’ * Charles 
and Vyse both exclaimed at that. Vyse un- 
guardedly called him an outsider — but Charles 
said quietly, “The worst of him is that he’s 
not.” 

“No,” I said, “you are right. He pretends 
to be, when he thinks it necessary — but he isn’t 
one at all, really. Nobody knows better than 
Mainwaring what he can do, and what he ought 
not.” 

Vyse caught me there. “You say ‘ what he 
ought not’ — not ‘what he can’t.’ ” 

“No,” I admitted, “I don’t think he knows 
what he can’t do. I don’t suppose he thinks 
there is anything that he can’t do — if he wants 
to do it.” 

Lady Whitehaven was crumbling her bread. 
I saw how quickly she was breathing. Heaven 
help her, it was a kind of death-warrant — and 
yet she loved to believe it. Young Lady Mary, 
high-coloured and bright-eyed, cheered the ut- 
terance. 

“Yes, I know, I know. That’s why I think 
he’s splendid. You might as well call Napoleon 
an outsider,” she said to poor Vyse. 


LADY WHITEHAVEN IN WOE 135 


“Well,” said Vyse, “I expect he was.” She 
lifted high her brows. What was to be said to 
such an opinion? The talk drifted from Main- 
waring. 

After dinner I perceived that I was in for a 
tete-a-tete; for the young people went away 
about ten o’clock to a party somewhere, and 
left me at her ladyship ’s discretion. It was all 
done very simply and without fuss. She slid 
into what she wanted to be at by saying, with 
gentle, sub-malicious humour — “You and 
Lizzy Mainwaring seemed so domestic the other 
night, I was quite ashamed to disturb you.” 

I thought I had better meet her quite half- 
way. “The domesticity w T as on the surface, 
Lady Whitehaven. It isn’t easy to be domestic 
in another man’s house — and Lizzy wouldn’t 
allow it.” 

She took me at once. “No, indeed. She 
is a dear creature; but I am sure she is a 
dragon. ’ ’ 

“She has her ideas,” I said; “and one of 
them is that, anyhow, she belongs to Mainwar- 
ing. Handed over by her father, at the bidding 
of a clergyman.” 


136 


MAIN WARING 


She bent her fair head. “Yes, I know. And 
you would add to that — or you might — that 
Mainwaring in the same way belongs to her. 
It is all very complicated — ” 

“If there are complications, ’ ’ I said, “they 
are not of her addition. She is not so simple 
as you think. She knows that Mainwaring con- 
siders himself a free-lance — or, rather, he is one 
without considering the matter at all. I say, 
she knows that is Mainwaring ’s view of himself ; 
but it is not her view of Mainwaring. ’ ’ 

Lady Whitehaven’s eyes were soft and dewy. 
I saw them to be so as she regarded me. 

“Does Lizzy love her husband, do you 
think ?” She asked me that. 

I knew — or thought I did — that she did not, 
but did not see my way to saying so. So I an- 
swered that I thought we were bound to assume 
it. “Her conduct, at any rate, does not contra- 
dict that assumption.” I did not say that; it 
was not necessary — but it was latent enough 
in what I did say to make the lady hang her 
head. A pause followed, in which I could see 
that she was about to bare her bosom to any- 
thing I chose to throw at it. And so the poor 
lady did. 

“As a friend of Lizzy’s I fear you must 


LADY WHITEHAVEN IN WOE 137 


think me very wrong; yet I hope you will do 
your best to believe that I am sincerely her 
friend too. I find it very difficult — almost im- 
possible, to talk freely to her. We move in 
such different worlds — she might find it impos- 
sible even to begin to understand — to make,, 
shall I say? allowances — ” I broke in there. 

“I think I may say on Mrs. Main waring ’s. 
account — it may save you needless distress — 
that she perfectly well understands the value of 
your kindness td Mainwaring. But she was, I 
think, unprepared for it. When Mainwaring 
became interested in her, you see, there was no- 
prospect — at any rate open to her — that he 
would ever be swimming in a stream where you 
were afloat.” Lady Whitehaven opened her 
blue eyes wide. 

“Oh, but really — Lizzy must have seen that 
he was — ” 

“Of course she did. She didn’t want to 
marry him at all. But as he insisted — 99 

She narrowed her eyes and nodded once or 
twice. “I know — I know — poor dear.” And 
then she gave me a full look. “I had not the 
slightest idea that he was married until long 
after I had known him.” I laughed. 

“I don’t suppose it occurred to him to tell 


138 MAIN WARING 

yon. He only told me as an afterthought — in 
Venice.” 

“It was in Venice that he told me about it,” 
said Lady Whitehaven. “I had seen a great 
deal of him all the winter before we went there. 
Of course it surprised me very much ; and when 
I came to know Lizzy — as I insisted on doing — I 
confess that I began to feel very uncomfort- 
able.” She played with a tassel on her sash — 
then broke out again. “It is most uncomfort- 
able — but it is impossible. He is really — at 
times, you know — That party of his, for in- 
stance — ” Then she showed an imploring 
look. “Can you help me, do you think?” 

Really, I didn’t see how I could. It was ob- 
vious that the poor lady was more than bored. 
She was frightened — stiff, as we say now. And 
I don’t wonder at it. The man would stick at 
nothing. 

I told her that I had no authority with Main- 
waring at all, except in so far as I was useful 
to him. He knew that I was fond of his wife, 
and that she considered me a good friend. He 
didn’t at all mind that — in fact, it was useful 
to him, a sort of sop to his conscience. But 
the moment he thought me in his way he would 
cut me out of his house and conversation. Our 


LADY WHITEHAVEN IN WOE 139 


acquaintance was no more than that, had 
neither a moral nor a sentimental basis. The 
notion that I could stand between him and his 
aims could not even be put before him. All 
that she saw, and sighed over it. 

“I suppose I shall have to abroad,* ’ she said. 
“ It is a horrid bore, with Molly in her first sea- 
son. In fact, I don’t know that I really can. 
My husband, of course, never interferes, other- 
wise — ” 

At that moment a smashing double knock at 
the door made itself felt in the great room where 
we sat. Lady Whitehaven put her hand to her 
side and went quite white. 

“ A telegram — ” I suggested; but she shook 
a sick head. 

“No, no — it *s — ” then she gasped and held 
out her hand towards me. “Don’t go — oh, 
don’t leave me — I know what it is — ” So did 
I, now. 

“Go and catch the man before he answers 
the door — go quickly. Let him say I am out. 
Go.” 

I bolted downstairs, and just caught the 
porter putting on his coat. 

“Her ladyship is not at home to anybody, 
she says.” 


140 


M AIN W ARIN Gr 


“ Very good, sir.” 

I watched, so did he. The knocker shattered 
against the door again. 

“ Better say she is out,” I said. 

“ Very good, sir.” 

As I went upstairs I heard Mainwaring ask 
for her, heard the reply, and him say, “Non- 
sense. Her ladyship will see me.” The man 
again said something — lied again, I suppose. 
Mainwaring said, “Then 111 wait.” At that 
moment I went into the drawing-room, and 
saw her crouched against the mantelpiece. 
She gave me a hunted look. 

“He has been denied,” I said, “but I am 
afraid he means to wait.” 

Dignity came back to her. “Then I shall 
go to bed. I am so sorry you have been 
disturbed by this mediaeval scene.” She rang 
the bell, and we both waited until the footman 
came in. “Tell Chambers I am going upstairs, 
please.” He bowed himself away. She held 
out her hand. “You have been more than kind. 
Tell Lizzy that I am coming to see her. Go 
there tomorrow, if you can. I am sure you will 
deal with him for me if you find him down- 
stairs.” I opened the door for her and saw 
her upstairs. Then I went down. Mainwaring 


LADY WHITEHAVEN IN WOE 141 


was not in the hall, or apparently in the house. 
The porter let me out, and there, sure enough, 
on the pavement, I saw him — looking gigantic 
in the misty lamplight. He was in black, with 
his overcoat collar up to his ears; a crush hat 
on the back of his head. He didn ’t see me until 
I spoke to him — then he jumped like a stung 
horse. 

“Hulloa, Mainwaring, ’ 9 I said, 4 ‘ what on 
earth are you doing here? Is your wife at a 
party — or anybody’s wife?” 

He was really disconcerted this time. “No, 
no — nothing of that sort. I have been dining 
out, and walked home with a man here.” He 
recovered himself, and his suspicions awoke. 
“And you — where have you been?” 

“I have been dining with the Whitehavens, 
your friends.” I saw him staring, and if it 
had been light enough could have seen down his 
throat. “Her ladyship has gone to bed with 
a headache. Some brute with a telegram came 
clamouring at the door, and probably woke her 
up. Whitehaven wanted to shoot him.” 

That was a risky one of mine. I wondered 
if Mainwaring knew that Lord Whitehaven was 
in Paris. Apparently he did not. 

“Those chaps think themselves messengers 


142 


MAIN W ARIN G 


of the gods/’ he said. “As indeed they are.” 
He stood where he was, and I with him, for a 
time : then he seemed to give in all at once, as 
if he believed me. I saw him look up at the 
second floor of the Whitehaven place. Perhaps 
he saw a light in her room. 

“Well,” he said, “I believe I’ll go to bed. I 
have talked too much and drunk too much for 
comfort — and I go to Jarrow tomorrow.” We 
turned to leave the Square. 

‘ * Strike-meeting ? ” I asked him. 1 6 Or strike- 
breaking?” 

“I shall be able to tell you when I get there,” 
he told me. 1 i But, by God, if I ’m not very much 
out, I fll break more than a strike this time. ’ 9 

He wouldn’t say any more, but hailed the 
first cab we saw, and got in. I heard him give 
Montagu Square before I left the pavement. 
“Tell Lizzy that I shall call tomorrow morn- 
ing, 9 9 I said. He waved his hand* 


XI 


LIZZY IN' PRINT 

H AVING doubly plugged my conscience, 
first by Lady Whitehaven’s bidding, 
next by due notice to Mainwaring, I went off at 
half-past ten in the morning to see Lizzy. 
What should be done with her when I saw her I 
left to Providence, which (in a particular de- 
partment) is supposed to laugh at locksmiths. 
I wanted to see her so much that the mere reali- 
zation that in twenty, in fifteen, in ten minutes I 
really should made my heart beat like a mill- 
wheel. I rode on the top of an omnibus; the 
sun was shining on old house-fronts and, shin- 
ing pavements. It seemed to me that every 
other woman I saw was a beauty — and then I 
remembered Lizzy, and laughed at such opti- 
mism. 

For all that and all that, I didn’t know what 
earthly advice to give her. The substantial 
thing to remember was that the man did not ill- 
treat her. It was not ill-treatment of her that 
he was making a fool of himself and of another 

143 


144 


M AIN W ARIN G 


woman, if Lizzy didn ’t mind. And if she didn ’t 
love him, I couldn’t believe that she did mind. 
I was certain that she had not a pennyweight 
of vanity in her beautiful mind. There was 
no spretae injuria formae to be feared, legiti- 
mate as such a grief would be in any woman. 
But Lizzy had not married Mainwaring for 
love, and had been bored rather than flattered 
by the whole affair. The one thing she had 
taken dreadfully to heart was the death of her 
baby, and the one thing that kept her with Main- 
waring now, I don’t doubt, was the chance of 
getting another. I knew absolutely nothing 
about that sort of thing — but now that I can 
afford to think it over, I am sure that in my 
inmost mind I didn’t believe that he lived with 
her. In that I may have been wrong — but that 
was at the back of my mind in those days. And 
I’ll say another thing in my own justification. 
If I ever thought of Lizzy — then — as Mainwar- 
ing ’s wife, and of what that involved, it gave 
me no distress. That she should yield herself 
to a man who loved another woman at least as 
much as he loved her (probably a great deal 
more), yield herself, because she had contracted 
to do so, seemed to me a beautiful act of humil- 
ity, a condescension which could only be paral- 


LIZZY IN PRINT 


145 


leled by the divine and tragic act of condescen- 
sion — the supreme sacrifice. The unco pious 
may he scandalized — but wrongly. One can but 
sacrifice the utmost one has — and what has a 
woman to offer but her heart in her body, or 
(if you like) her body in her heart? And if she 
sacrifice body without heart, the greater may be 
the oblation. But all this is by the way. 

She opened the door to me herself — there, 
glowing, she stood, in apron and print gown, a 
white cap, like a crescent moon, in her hair. 
She looked so beautiful, blushing and confused 
as she was, that I nearly lost my senses. * ‘ Oh, 
Lizzy, to meet you like this, in your own house !” 
I didn ’t know what I was saying. 

She laughed — that is, her eyes laughed. 
“You ought not to mind. It will be the first 
time you have seen me happy in it.” It was 
obviously true that she was happy. 

“If it is your happiness that makes you look 
like a rose, I am ready to give thanks for it, 
however you get it.” I don’t think that I had 
ever told her before that she was beautiful. I 
was rather shocked with myself directly I had 
said it — but she took it quite calmly. 

We went into her sitting-room below-stairs — * 
the housekeeper’s room — and she told me all 


146 


MAINWARINO 


about it. It had really been settled on the day 
of the dinner-party, and was begun the day 
after it. Main waring had made no objection 
whatever. The other women in the house were 
friends of Lizzy’s — the cook, indeed, had been 
cook in the house from which she had been 
taken to be married. Lizzy had been house- 
maid there. Now — in her husbands house, she 
was parlourmaid, and a friend of hers, Elsie 
by name, was housemaid. There had been no 
trouble at all, she said, and she was “another 
girl” since she had done it. It was a strange 
thing to me — but it ought not to have been. 
What happened when Mainwaring was at home 
without company 1 Did she have breakfast with 
him? She shook her head. “No, I have all my 
meals with the others. They would be hurt if 
I didn’t — and I prefer it myself.” 

“Then he never sees you at all, except as a 
maid ! ’ ’ 

She did not flinch. “He can when he wants 
to, of course.” 

“I meant that there must be lots of things to 
consult you about. His plans, for instance, his 
work, his letters — you can’t be dropped out of 
his daily concerns — even if you both wished it. ’ ’ 

That also she took very simply. “Oh, no. 


LIZZY IN PRINT 


147 


He shows me any letters he chooses — and some- 
times asks me what I think. Then I tell him. 
Sometimes he tells me what he has said or 
done in the House — or where he had dined — or 
whom he has met. I know that he met you last 
night, for instance. He told me that.” 

“Did he tell you where he had met me?” 

She raised her eyebrows. “No. I guessed 
that.” 

Then I told her from point to point every- 
thing that had happened overnight. She heard 
me out without a sign. It was evident that her 
native fatalism was helping her. If not that, 
then it must be that she did not care. When I 
had done, as she said nothing, but sat with 
her cheek in her hand, fixedly looking at her 
lap, I began again. 

“Lizzy, it is plain to me that Lady White- 
haven is miserable about all this, and won’t be 
able to stand a renewal of the scene in this room. 
It is true that she brought it all on herself. 
One doesn’t need to tell her that. She knows 
it. All she has to say is, as I told you, that 
when she encouraged Mainwaring she didn’t 
know that he was married. When she knew 
that it was too late. Now, I don’t see why you 
should go out of your way to get her out of her 


148 


MAINWARING 


trouble, except for one reason — that it would 
perhaps get you out of trouble too. If I may 
say so, I can’t bear to think that I may see you 
insulted again as you were that night.” 

She looked up at me — quickly, and then looked 
to her lap again. ‘ ‘ I don ’t think he knew he was 
insulting me.” 

“No, indeed/ ’ I broke out, “I don’t suppose 
it entered his head.” 

“I was much more sorry for her than I was 
for myself,” she went on. “You see, I know 
him, and she doesn’t. I know that in many 
things he is a child. He sees a thing, and he 
wants it. If he can’t get it he makes a fuss. 
I have thought sometimes of leaving him for a 
time,” she went on, clasping her hands round 
her knee. “I think it very likely he would come 
for me by-and-by; and if he did I could make 
some sort of terms for myself. But if he 
didn’t I know that he would destroy himself 
and her too. So I don’t think about it. I 
know that he won’t destroy me — and now that 
I have settled my place here I am as happy as 
I can expect to be. It is money that worries 
me. You know what I think about that. I be- 
long to people who have never been in debt — 
and now we are deep in debt. I don’t know 


LIZZY IN PRINT 


149 


what he owes — but it is so much that I am sure 
the tradesmen won’t supply us much longer. 
He takes money from his great friends — and 
I can’t tell you how I hate it. But I have noth- 
ing to do with it. He pays me like a servant, 
and pays the other girls here — and I don’t 
know, any more than you do, where he gets the 
money from. He is on a wrong road — he is not 
doing what he promised to do — he has deceived 
me about that. Oh,” she cried out sharply, as 
if she was hurt, “I hate it, I hate it. I was 
brought up so good, and now I am a liar. That 
is much worse than the other thing. It is noth- 
ing to me what he does with other women. I 
am ready to do my duty — as a wife or a mother, 
if I get a chance. The rest of it seems to me to 
be his own business, not mine. He took me be- 
cause he talked my mother over — I knew he was 
a gentleman — but he told me he couldn’t live 
without me — and that he had given up his life 
to helping working-people. The least I could 
do, he said, was to stand in with him. Well, 
and I did— and now he is going back to his own 
set, and all I am allowed to do for him is to be 
his parlourmaid. If he had lived as he was 
when I first knew him— on thirty shillings a 
week — I would have worked myself to the bone 


150 


MAINWARING 


for him and my baby. But baby died because 
I couldn’t nurse him properly — and I shan’t 
have another. I sometimes wish I had died too 
— ” She hid her face in her hands, and sobbed 
once or twice. “My dear, my dear,” was all I 
could say. I dared not touch her. 

Presently she wiped her eyes, and smiled 
faintly. “I know you don’t think me silly. It 
does me good to tell you my troubles, and to 
cry about them. Do you know I have never told 
anybody but you anything about it? And I be- 
gan to tell you, I don’t know how long ago.” 
She gave me her hand, and I kissed it. I was 
too much moved to speak. 

“Lizzy,” I said presently, “you are a noble 
girl. I shan’t say that there’s no one like you, 
because I believe that there are a thousand 
women like you. I would like to believe that 
there were three men in this town so clear- 
headed and honourable. But that isn ’t the way 
of men, and perhaps not what they are here for. 
Anyhow, you have convinced me that you are 
right to stay here, and right to act as you do — 
until, Lizzy, until, my dear, you can act better.” 

She asked me what I meant. I told her. I 
said that however it was that Mainwaring fell 
in love with her — which I didn’t wonder at at all 


LIZZY IN PRINT 


151 


— it was plain that love could never hinder his 
destiny. It was his destiny to rise, and to rise 
in politics. All his ability, passion, wit, read- 
ing, powers of mind would be bent by his na- 
ture to the fulfilling of that destiny. Might it 
not be her business to keep pace with him, or 
to try to keep pace? “Instead of giving it all 
up, my dear, and contenting yourself with do- 
ing his housework, couldn’t you sit at his table, 
receive his guests, and mix with his world? 
You are shy about beginning — but if you want 
to keep him, I ’m not sure that there is any other 
way of doing it. ’ 9 

I had seen signs of storm in the concentra- 
tion of her pupils, in her lips pressed together, 
and rising colour — but I finished what I had 
to say; and then I added, “Don’t do it to please 
me, you know. I prefer you infinitely as you 
are — but I think that he might like you better 
if you went into the world with him.” Then 
she lifted her head, and I saw her eyes grown 
cold and hard, like winter stars.” 

“I will never go into that world. It is hate- 
ful to me. I think it horrible. I would rather 
be on the streets than like Lady Whitehaven. 
I ’ll die if I can ’t be honest. ’ ’ Her arms moved, 
as if she would hold them out to me — her lips 


152 


MAIN WARING 


trembled — her eyes filled. ‘ 4 Don’t — ob, don’t 
ask me to do it. Indeed I couldn ’t. ’ ’ 

I shook my head. “ Never more, my dear. 
I was wrong. Be yourself — I ask nothing bet- 
ter in the world than you as you are . 9 9 

She thanked me, and wiped her tears away. 
I felt a brute, though in all I said I had been 
working against myself. 

After that I took a lighter tone altogether, 
and got her at her ease. How far, for instance, 
did she think herself in service? Oh, she said, 
all the way in. What, did she have an after- 
noon off? She nodded, smiling. Well, then; 
would she allow me to walk out with her ? Smil- 
ing and blushing, yes, indeed, she would. 
When was it? It was tomorrow. All right. 
I would be in the Square at three o’clock, and 
we would go to Kew Gardens. Her whole face 
lighted. She simply radiated beauty. 

“I have never been there. I shall love it. 
And — and — ” She hesitated, and seemed to 
ask boldness from me. 

“Well, my dear — ?” 

“Will you please to bring a book in your 
pocket?” 

“A book, Lizzy? What kind of book?” 

She stayed again. She looked as if she 


LIZZY IN PEINT 153 

thought I wasn’t going to believe her. “I 
should like a poetry book.” 

May I he forgiven! I don’t know that I did 
believe her. “Are you sure you want that? 
I’ll tell you why I ask you. I love poetry my- 
self, and love reading poetry aloud — hut only 
if I am sure the person who hears me likes to 
hear it. Now, people who don’t like poetry 
don ’t like it at all. Do you see ? ’ ’ 

She listened with lowered eyelids. “Please 
bring one. I promise to tell you if I don’t like 
it.” Agreed. I promised. 

She came with me to the door, the beautiful, 
gentle, simple creature that she was, gave me 
her true hand, and stood within the threshold, 
smiling me away. I went home — to call it so 
for want of a better word — with my heart melt- 
ing in my breast. Much as I know of love, now 
in my age, much more as I know of its heights 
and deeps, I am sure that no man of more ex- 
alted or purer passion walked up Oxford 
Street that day. 


XII 


UNDER THE BLOSSOM 

I AM tempted to linger over these few days of 
a happy summer — as what man would not 
he, who is a lover still? But I can only record 
that beginning, and must then leave it for other 
things, elements of labour and sorrow which, 
though we chose to disregard them, even then 
were edging it in. At all hazards, however, I 
must remark upon the first outing we two had 
ever had. The anticipation of it, the promise 
of a clear sky, the sun, the kindly west wind had 
wrought their magic upon my dear girl’s looks. 
She sparkled and gleamed like a summer’s 
morning. I saw it all latent in her before she 
was within speaking distance, noticing the light- 
ness of her step as she came to meet me. She 
moved, as she always did, with that swimming 
gait which tall women often have (as the poets 
have observed) ; but there was added now a 
buoyant breasting of the air, as if she felt the 
crisping waves prick her into enhanced life. 
She had dressed herself in white, as suited so 

154 


UNDER THE BLOSSOM 


155 


fine a day, with May about to wed June. She 
had a black hat and feather, a black sash at her 
waist, as women did in that day, and do still 
if they know what they are about. ‘ 4 1 hope you 
feel what you show, Lizzy.” That made her 
blush. “I feel what I ought,” she said, “on 
such a day as this. ” “ Oh, my dear, ’ 9 1 said — 
“we are going to be happy.” She sighed. 

So we s6t off, all our cares left behind, and 
not even the dinginess of the Underground 
tarnished our hopes. All this happened before 
the time of tramways ; before the top of an om- 
nibus was feasible for ladies. Eighteen-eighty- 
odd! I remember that I proposed a hansom, 
being of that manly age when the spending of 
money is the natural outlet of happy youth, and 
that she begged me not. She said that it was 
extravagant ; but her real objection was that it 
would put her out of focus. She had taken her 
definite place in the scale of class, and her con- 
sidered place. She could be happy in it, and 
only happy there. Mainwaring had forced her 
into a false position: she did not intend that I 
should do the same. She acted as much for my 
good as for her own, and I see now that she was 
wise. 

So we travelled third-class on the Under- 


156 


M AIN W AKIN Gr 


ground — and were entirely happy. “Do you 
know,” she said — we were alone in the compart- 
ment — “this is the first time I have been out of 
London since I came to it!” 

“My poor girl,” I began — but she laughed at 
me. 

“That shows you what I am!” 

“It shows me what I am, too, Lizzy. But I’ll 
deserve you yet.” She was thinking of some- 
thing else. 

“I’m glad now that I saved it up. I have 
been all this time getting ready.” 

I said to her, “But now you have gone back 
to service again, you will get your yearly holi- 
day, I suppose?” 

She opened her eyes, rounding them — “Oh, 
of course I shall take that.” Then she went on, 
“I might go at any time, now that he is in the 
North. He told me so. I ought to go home 
for a few days. I haven’t seen Mother for two 
years.” 

“Now is your time, then.” She looked at 
me for a moment, fully, seriously, then turned 
away. “ I ’ll go presently. ’ ’ 

Everything was new to her. It was like a 
voyage, and became so to me who had travelled 
Europe and Asia Minor. She loved the river 


UNDER THE BLOSSOM 


157 


at Hammersmith, and the glimpses of little staid 
old houses on the Mall. “I could he happy in 
one of those little houses;” she said, “if — ” 

“Oh, Lizzy,” I sighed, “could you not be 
happy in any little house, or big house, if — !” 

She nodded quickly, still straining back to 
catch the last of them and of the windy water. 
Then she turned to me. “Yes, I daresay. But 
not in a big house. The happier I was the less 
I would choose a big house.” She puzzled it, 
out. “In a big house, you see, you might easily 
get lost.” 

I suppose I frowned over that, for she grew 
eager. ‘ i Oh, don ’t you see ? We might have to 
be so far away from each other.” Yes, I saw 
that. It made me feel that indeed we were so 
— and at this moment in a fool’s paradise. But 
I put that away from me. Here we were, and 
vogue la galere! Meantime we reached our sta- 
tion. 

Lizzy ’s eyes had not been educated to the com- 
plexities of art. She neither knew how to see, 
nor that she saw. She could appreciate detail, 
but not mass. Therefore the blended fire of the 
azaleas did not affect her, nor the feathery 
plumes of the bamboos ; but she went into soft 
ecstasies over a white fritillary self sown in a 


158 


MAIN WARING 


corner of the rock-garden. She saw how it 
hung in air, called it a fairy thimble, and loved 
it. She had no fine words for it, either. I had 
to read her quiet pleasure in her face. It 
seemed to me that she was taking in sight as a 
dog gets scent. She inhaled the ordered spaces, 
vistas, masses and groupings of the grassy 
place, all golden as they were in young leaves. 
She breathed them like fresh air, and was visibly 
the better for them. The glasshouses of orchids 
and other wonders did not amuse her. For the 
orchids particularly she showed distaste. Her 
fine nostrils dilated, her short lip curved up- 
wards, as if the bow was on a stretch. 4 ‘ They 
are like creatures. They seem to be wicked be- 
fore your face — as if they didn’t care what you 
saw. ’ 7 That was as near as she could get. Her 
eyes sought the door, and the green, faint behind 
the misted glass. At last she said, “I don’t 
like this much. Let’s get into the sun again.” 

When w r e had seen the lions of the place she 
was all for sitting down. “I should like to sit 
still, and you to read to me. Did you bring a 
book, as I asked you?” 

“Of course I did. You shall stop me when 
you don’t like it.” She lifted that off as non- 


UNDER THE BLOSSOM 159 

sensical lumber by throwing up her chin. I 
saw my folly drop behind her. 

I found a quiet place for her under some 
ilexes, in view of the lake. There we sat, and 
Lizzy disposed herself to listen, crossing one 
leg, nursing her cheek in her hand. She some- 
times danced the suspended foot. Her eyes, so 
far as I could see, never wandered. Whenever 
I glanced at her, she was looking vaguely at the 
ground, but was intensely aware both of what 
was being said and of the situation. She said 
very little, and exactly what she felt — which was 
so like her. She was of all people I have known 
the least insincere. I am sure she would much 
rather have appeared stupid than pretended to 
sensibility. 

I was armed with the Golden Treasury, and 
had made a selection overnight. There are 
tales in that anthology, which I had judged 
would please her most; and I began with the 
simplest of all of them, Lucy Gray. I took the 
trouble to school my voice to a low level, read- 
ing without expression, but very distinctly, as 
if it had been a police report of the child’s 
disappearance — say, before the Coroner. I 
don’t know any other way of giving good poetry 


160 


MAIN WARING 


a chance — for bad poetry you may need a 
fashionable actor. But Lucy Gray is good 
poetry. 

Evidently — as I could judge by the light in 
Lizzy ’s eyes — she was enormously relieved to 
find that she had followed every stave of the 
pretty story! Was that poetry? And I liked 
that? Wbiy, and so did she! But that was 
guesswork of mine : I remember her comment on 
Lucy Gray. She confessed the sadness of it — 
“but somehow you can bear it. You can see 
that it had to be so.” Then she added, “Poor 
child — perhaps, if she hadn’t died, she would 
have been unhappy later on.” We had a little 
talk about it, and I was touched to find that she 
spoke of Lucy Gray as if she was a real person. 
So she was, of course — but that is not my point. 

After that I read Poor Susan, and The Daf- 
fodils, and then The Cuckoo. She liked the last 
best. I went back then to Helen of Kirkconnell, 
and Willie Drowned in Yarrow — but she had 
nothing to say to either of them. I gave her 
“Jack and Joan they think no ill”; the Elegy, 
and finally Auld Robin Gray. That brought the 
tears to her eyes, as indeed it had to mine. I 
asked her if it hurt. She said, “No, no. I like 
it. It is beautiful. It does me good.” And 


UNDER THE BLOSSOM 


161 


then she asked me to read it again, “but 
slower.’ ’ When it was done, she drooped her 
chin towards her breast. “Life’s just like that. 
But it can still be beautiful. ’ ’ I read her some 
more ambitious things — The Scholar Gypsy was 
one, and The Forsaken Merman another. Then 
I stopped, and she thanked me with a pretty 
gesture of confidence which was almost a caress 
— the wraith, you may say, of a caress. “Now 
I know,” she said, “that I like something that 
you like. ’ ’ 

“You like lots of things that I like,” I told 
her. “I don’t believe you like anything that I 
don ’t like. ’ ’ 

“Will you lend me the book now?” 

“My dear, I’ll give it you, if you will ac- 
cept it.” 

She took it, and looked to see if it had my 
name in it. It had not. “Write my name in 
it, please, and the date.” That was done. I 
said, “I’ll carry it for you till I leave you.” 
But she wanted to carry it herself, and I saw 
it closed against her breast. 

We had tea in one of the little houses on Kew 
Green, and walked homewards in the golden 
afternoon light, on the river bank. I never saw 
her tired in those days; but a veil of sadness 


162 


MAINWARINGr 


came over her, and came between ns, which we 
each made efforts to rend. She said — it was 
one of her efforts — “Well, I’ve had today, at 
any rate. I expect I shall be glad of it, of ten/ ’ 

“Only the afternoon, Lizzy.” 

“No, no,” she said; “all day. I had all the 
morning to think of it. ’ ’ Then she sighed, and 
her head drooped. “After all, we are only pre- 
tending, aren 1 we!” 

“Oh, my dear, you don’t believe that. You 
believe that I ’m a humbug. ’ ’ 

She was wide-eyed and all alert. 1 1 Oh, no, no, 
no. You don’t understand. I mean that we 
might — that it might have been different if — 
Oh, but I don’t know.” 

“ If we had met before ? — Ah, Lizzy. ’ ’ She 
was now mighty serious. 

“Do you think that it ever answers — with 
people so different as you and I?” 

I told her that I didn’t think the difference 
need matter a straw if there were resemblances 
underneath. I believed it, and I still believe it. 
If the differences are superficial — as those 
which she was thinking of certainly were — they 
can ’t prevail against affinities such as I saw be- 
tween myself and this beautiful girl. It is the 
elementals which count in the long run. 


UNDER THE BLOSSOM 


163 


So I told her, and gave her to understand 
that I loved her. She heard that quietly, with- 
out any demonstration or without revealing the 
state of her own heart. I understood that that 
would have been against her instinct and moral 
code. 

But when she presently said that, in that 
case, she thought that we ought not to meet, I 
had to fight for my own hand — or at any rate 
so I said. “ Lizzy,’ ’ I said, “ can’t you trust 
me!” 

“Yes,” she said in a low voice, “I know that 
— but — ” She turned away her head. I 
waited. 

Then she said , ‘ 1 The more beautiful you make 
my life for me, the harder it will be. I have 
done for myself, you see. I have made my bed, 
and I must lie on it.” She drew to me, and 
touched my arm. I thought she would have 
taken it, but no — “We mustn ’t meet often — 
not every week. I can’t do it — don’t ask me. 
If you will lend me some books I shall be very 
grateful. Will you do that? Tell me what to 
read— and I’ll make myself better. I might do 
it by being with you — but I must not. Shall it 
be like that ? ’ ’ 

I was young, you see, and awfully in love. 


164 


MAINWARINGr 


No doubt I was disappointed — but her sincerity 
was beyond doubt. 

“ Everything shall be as you think best, 
Lizzy,” I told her. “I shall write to you once 
a week, and you shall answer when you can, 
and tell me when I may see you. I can’t have 
you reproaching yourself. That hurts too 
much. If I can’t make your life happier I am 
no good to you. I know I ought not to have 
said what I did. But you knew it quite well — ” 

I take credit to myself that I didn ’t press her 
on that point. There’s nothing a young lover 
glories in so much as a woman’s confession that 
she knows what’s the matter with him. I don’t 
know what I thought could be the upshot of all 
this — I don ’t know that I thought about that at 
all. I loved her, and that was enough for me. 
But if my dear girl thought — as she did — that 
things were going to be any better for our dis- 
comfort, she was mistaken. 

I took her to her door, and left her there. 
Her mood was wistful and very tender ; btit she 
had herself under control. We parted with a 
hand-clasp ; and she was to have her books the 
next day. 

I may as well record with what she began her 
education in literature. I sent her Copper- 


UNDER THE BLOSSOM 165 

field and Great Expectations, and intended 
to follow on them with Sir Walter Scott. As 
for poetry, she should have that through me 
and by voice and ear. 


XIII 


MAIN WARING AND SIR JOHN 

I CONFESS, never having been interested in 
politics, except as a part of the expression 
of life, I knew very little what Main waring was 
doing at Jarrow. So long as he remained there 
a long time, I cared very little, either. I was 
not much of a newspaper-reader, and still less 
of a club-man; but it was not possible to be al- 
together ignorant, and I had gathered from 
newsbills and casual conversations that he had 
his enemies in the press. There was one paper 
in particular, perhaps the first of the type with 
which we have become abundantly familiar, 
which seemed to have a knife into him. That 
was The London Messenger , whose aim very 
simply was to make itself indispensable in 
everybody’s affairs. It was personal, it was 
sensational, it stuck at nothing. Having found 
out that bad news paid it better than good news 
— since the public runs to know the worst but 
can afford to wait for comfortable things until 
a comfortable moment, it dealt in clamour. 
166 


MAIN WARING AND SIR JOHN 167 


When there was no reality about which to be 
clamorous, it was not above finding a substitute. 
In politics it was high tory, with a leaning to 
explosive patriotism. Bentivoglio was its hero, 
to whom it owed the Empire of India, Peace 
with Honour, and other filling phrases which 
lent themselves to public-house arguments and 
Hyde Park oratory. But The Messenger went 
a great deal further than that. It took all pub- 
lic affairs in charge, and was the first news- 
paper to send its reporters into criminal inves- 
tigation. If a murder occupied the public, the 
Messenger’s young men made enquiry and re- 
port; if it was a strike, they were ready and 
eager to compose it by negotiation, or by 
threats. One Sir John Copestake was the pro- 
prietor of this print, and like a great many other 
people he took himself with great seriousness, 
and his self-appointed office also. It was with 
him and his organ that Mainwaring now found 
himself embroiled. 

The Messenger had never left him alone from 
the time when he first became public property 
in the Trafalgar Square riot. Never a week 
passed, after that, without some reference to his 
detriment. It was The Messenger which nick- 
named him The Fenian; but his friends adopted 


168 


MAINWARING 


that with enthusiasm. In the Culgaith strike 
it made a push to have him prosecuted for con- 
spiracy; but he was so successful up there that 
the thought was abandoned as hopeless. Then 
came his election, which made The Messenger 
foam at the press, and since that another Elec- 
tion, a Liberal triumph, and Mainwaring ’s rap- 
prochement with the Government. The affair 
of attack was greatly eased by that last develop- 
ment. With the Government it would beat 
Mainwaring, with Mainwaring the Government. 
It made public property at once of the fact that 
Mainwaring had gone up to Jarrow on an un- 
official mission from the Ministry. There were 
government works at Jarrow which might be- 
come involved in the Boilermakers’ strike. 
Mainwaring was to prevent that. Now if it be- 
came known, firstly that the Government chose 
a notorious demagogue to arbitrate in a trade 
dispute, or secondly that a popular tribune 
went into a labour trouble with a government 
manacle on his leg, serious damage would be 
done, or might be done to both parties, to say 
nothing of the boilermaking industry. The first 
act, therefore, of The Messenger’s was to pro- 
claim upon a bill “The Fenian as Strike- 
Breaker/ 9 and to declare in a leading article 


MAINWARING AND SIR JOHN 169 


what Mainwaring ’s real business at Jarrow 
was. Having established that as a solid pillar 
of fact — solid because it had been stated as a 
fact in a leading article — it proceeded to crucify 
Mainwaring upon it day by day. The Govern- 
ment was greatly embarrassed at Westminster, 
and I don’t doubt that Mainwaring was at Jar- 
row. I heard that he flatly denied his semi- 
official status — which Mr. Hardman was incap- 
able of doing. More than that, Mainwaring 
promised that when the strike was over he 
should have revelations to make in his turn: 
meantime, he said, he was not the man to be 
turned aside from his duty by newspaper touts. 
The Jarrow strike, therefore, became a side- 
issue of another contest altogether, and the pub- 
lic, which cares little for strikes, and very much 
for dog fights, was highly excited. 

I collected so much from what I heard or read, 
but nothing directly. Lizzy knew nothing, 
either. Mainwaring never wrote to her. His 
letters were sent to a private address — Long- 
waitby Hall, Sunderland — from which I saw, 
not without amusement, that the day was gone 
by for sharing the people’s miseries. Main- 
waring now went down as a god from a machine. 
I don’t doubt that Lizzy remarked on that, too. 


170 


MAINWARING 


There were few things about Mainwaring which 
escaped her. But she said nothing about it — 
indeed, we should never have talked of him at 
all if he had not been put in our way by other 
people. Then it became necessary for the poor 
girl to do something — but I shall come to that 
presently. 

I saw her at this time about once a fort- 
night, when I took her out either on a week-day 
or a Sunday, as might suit. At other times she 
took one of the maids in the house as her com- 
panion. In June she went to her people at 
Merrow for a fortnight; and during that fort- 
night it happened that I saw Mainwaring in a 
hansom, and an evening or two afterwards met 
him at a great house. That house was not the 
Whitehavens \ I believe that he was not denied 
the door there. It was at her sister’s, the 
Duchess of Leven’s, that I came upon him. 
He had been dining there, obviously, and was in 
great form upstairs when I arrived, playing the 
fool among a lot of people, as he could when he 
chose. What made his sallies so comic was 
•that he was always serious himself. Preposter- 
ous things were said in a tone of cold exaspera- 
tion — as if they were wrung, out of a strong man 
in an agony. He never laughed — I never saw 


MAINWARING AND SIR JOHN 171 


or heard a laugh from him; but he had people 
in tears all about him, some praying him to 
stop. 

Lady Whitehaven was there, and so was her 
pretty, frail, foolish girl, Lady Mary Pointsett. 
I judged that things were not well between 
Mainwaring and his lady. He talked at her 
most of the time; and though she undoubtedly 
laughed, I could see that she held off him. But 
her poor girl seemed bewitched. She couldn’t 
take her eyes away. That was not a pleasant 
thing to see. I didn’t know then what a fool 
the child was, nor what a double fool her mother. 

I remember one thing and can’t leave it out. 
It was a young people’s party that night, and 
we were playing some card game round a table 
— a very noisy game in which everybody talked, 
and cheating was allowed so long as it was not 
found out. The Duchess was in a wild humour 
and said whatever came into her head. She ac- 
cused Mainwaring of all the shifts charged 
against him by The Messenger , and going on 
from bad to worse taxed him with having “a 
pretty wife” somewhere in the dark. I don’t 
know why — it was no worse than half-a-dozen 
things she had said — but that shot was followed 
by a dead silence. I could not look at Lady 


172 


MAINWARING 


.Whitehaven, who alone, with me, knew the truth. 
Mainwaring received the charge without the 
change of a muscle. He raised his eyebrows 
and looked over at the Duchess, with his card 
suspended in the air. 

“A wife, or wives, did you say, Duchess? 
Why should I deny it? You would never be- 
lieve me if I denied it six times, but would wait 
for the crowing cock. No, no, I’ll not deny it; 
but I’ll refer you to my friend here. You’ll 
take his word for it.” 

All eyes were upon me. I had to decide 
quickly. It was rage that put me right. 

“My dear Mainwaring,” I said, “I can only 
say that I have often been at your house, but 
that I have never yet seen any one there who 
could possibly be considered as the mistress of 
it. ’ ’ Lady Whitehaven was shuffling her cards. 
Lady Mary’s eyes were intently upon Mainwar- 
ing. Mainwaring looked impudently at the 
Duchess. “Hear him! Many thanks, my dear 
man, for a coat of whitewash.” Then he 
slapped down his King of Trumps, and took the 
pool. I had some talk with him afterwards, but 
he did not refer to that incident at all. He told 
me that he was in town to put some whalebone 
into old Hardman’s frock-coat. “If they would 


MAIN W ARIN G AND SIB JOHN 173 


leave me alone I could pull them out of the 
broth — but they won’t do one thing or the other. 
They are all more or less in it like flies — and 
when I get them to a dry place they spend their 
time in cleaning their legs.” 

He said that there would be a general strike 
up there within a week. “ Nothing can help it 
— and I’ll take care that nothing does.” 

“And what will Hardman say to that!” 

“My boy, he’ll live to thank me.” 

I asked him if Lizzy had come up, but he 
waved her away. “No, no. I’m not staying 
at home. She’s with her folks, and much bet- 
ter where she is.” Then he turned away to 
Lady Mary, who was waiting for him, and talked 
to her for the rest of the time that I was there. 
I had a few words with Lady Whitehaven, who 
evidently wanted them. 

“You were very ready, I thought, just now,” 
she said, by way of beginning. “I was thankful 
he didn’t refer it to me. I shouldn’t have 
known what line to take. But you did it awfully 
well. ’ ’ \ 

“I told the truth,” I said. “It isn’t a pleas- 
ant truth at all — but there it is. ’ ’ 

“Yes, indeed.” She looked sympathetic — 
her head on one side. “I can’t help saying, you 


174 


MAIN WARIN Gr 


know, that the dear creature makes it almost im- 
possible. Doesn’t she?” 

I said coldly that I didn’t see what else she 
could do. “Well,” she said, “one thing or the 
other.” Then she told me that she had seen 
Lizzy before she went away, and had had a 
great shock. “She opened the door to me — in 
full fig, you know. I wasn’t at all prepared for 
it. She looked ravishing, I must say. She is 
a lovely person — and I’m very, very fond of 
her. But really — poor man. It makes it al- 
most impossible.” 

I said that she must look at the other side of 
the thing too. He had married her against her 
will on the understanding that he was definitely 
taking a step down. She had been almost a 
cornerstone of his political edifice. But after 
Culgaith he began to take steps up. Well — 
She wasn’t prepared for that. She wasn’t 
ready. She didn’t believe in what he was do- 
ing. She felt that she had been tricked. She 
was absolutely honest and could not bring her- 
self to play a part. Underlying the force with 
which I spoke was my conviction that it was 
Lady Whitehaven’s doing. 

I think she knew that, for, as once before, she 
deprecated my indignation. 


MAIN WARING AND SIR JOHN 175 


“I know what you mean, of course. I can’t 
help feeling that the whole thing was a great 
mistake. How are we to tell what happened? 
Whether it was his passion for her which drew 
him to the people, or his feeling for the people 
which committed him to her? In either case 
one can’t blame him — but one can’t approve, can 
one? You see, I have been mixed up with 
politics all my life — just as my sister is. It is 
so immensely important to our party that he 
should be one of us — and now he is tied by the 
leg to a sweet, good woman, and can’t rise be- 
cause she can’t. Why, think only of this. If 
he hadn’t been married he would never have 
taken that absurd great cave of a house. He 
would have given his parties at the House of 
Commons, or anywhere — Oh, it really is a sad 
thing. You must see that. I am determined 
that he shall take office. He will, you’ll see, 
after this Jarrow affair. There is a tre- 
mendous thing hanging upon that. If he suc- 
ceeds in all his plans he will prove himself 
simply indispensable to us. Oh, my dear Mr. 
Whitworth, I do wish I could make you see 
what we all feel about it.” 

I contained myself. But I asked her whether 
she had said all this to Lizzy. She declared that 


176 


MAINWARING 


she hadn’t said a word of it. “To tell you the 
truth,” she said, “I couldn’t have done it. She 
has a way of being unapproachable. She seems 
perfectly simple, and yet one feels, don’t you 
Jmow, that she is judging one all the time.” 
t That in its way was comic. Lizzy, of course, 
seemed simple because she was so. Lady 
[Whitehaven wasn’t at all used to direct dealing 
in anything, being herself the least simple of 
women. 

But I told her one or two things which she 
wasn’t prepared for. “Lizzy,” I said, “is do- 
ing what she thinks her duty by Main waring; 
but she is not doing it by inclination. She 
thinks that Mainwaring is not doing his duty to 
her, but that, according to her, is his affair — not 
hers at all. At the same time she is a proud 
woman. On the least hint from him she would 
go. I don’t know whether he knows that — but 
I know it myself perfectly well. She would 
go, and without a sixpence from him. I’d go 
to the stake on that.” 

She heard me thoughtfully — but I saw a smile 
hovering. Presently it broke. 

‘ ‘ She has a champion, at all events. I wonder 
if she knows how devoted you are. ’ ’ 


MAIN WAEIN G AND SIR JOHN 177 


“Not only does she know it,” I said, “but 
Mainwaring knows it too.” 

“ He is dangerous — I daresay you know that. ’ ’ 

I stared. ‘ ‘ Do you mean that he might think 
— ? I assure you that he knows Lizzy much 
better than that. ’ ’ The malice cleared from her 
lips, and she dismissed me with pure benevo- 
lence. “She must be a saint, from what you i 
tell me,” she said. “No,” I said, getting up; 
“she’s not that at all. But she’s true to type. 

I fancy that her mother must be a fine woman. ’ ’ 
She turned away her head. I saw rather than 
heard her sigh, and at that moment, or the next, 

I saw that I had been too apt. I saw Lady 
Mary looking up with adoration at Mainwar- 
ing, who was hectoring her from his height. 
The pretty creature was drinking him in 
through parted lips. I was very young for my 
years — I felt a horror of the place I was in. 

“Look at those two. Isn’t it comic?” That 
was how the Duchess took my farewells. 
Comic ! 

Going out into the street I heard the howling 
newsboys proclaiming a general strike at Jar- 


row. 


XIV 


LIZZY BIDS MB GO 

W HILE Lizzy was away we corresponded 
like two friends, or say relatives ; but, 
on my side at least, when she returned we met 
like lovers. I don’t know what made me keep 
the door of my lips, I am sure. If I had not, 
she would have given me hers. I don’t doubt 
that. It is necessary to say — and I know it, 
because it took me some pains to find it out for 
myself — that in Lizzy’s world the kiss is still the 
customary greeting, and that the kiss is given 
and taken by the lips. She would have kissed 
me that afternoon at Charing Cross because she 
was tender towards me, and very glad to see me ; 
but she did not. I take no credit to myself for 
that : it is the fact that I wished so much to kiss 
her, and that it would have meant so much more 
to me than to her, that I dared not do it. In 
her it would have been an expression, in me a 
betrayal. I took her hand, and held it. ‘ ‘ Oh, 
my dear, I’m glad of you.” She stood before 
me trembling and glowing, not looking at me. 
178 


LIZZY BIDS ME GO 


179 


It was a beating moment — and it bad to con- 
tent me. I took her luggage from her, and 
then we went together to my rooms, which were 
in Buckingham Street, close by. The passion 
of our meeting still held us. I don’t think we 
spoke a word to each other until we were in the 
room. Then the air changed. I became the 
host, and she was the visitor. I knew that she 
would feel shy, and turned all my will to putting 
her at her ease. I made her take off her jacket 
and hat. I said that I was going to pretend for 
an hour that she was at home. She laughingly 
lent herself to it. All I know is that I never 
felt her so little at home as she was that after- 
noon. 

I lighted the gas and put the kettle on the 
ring. Meantime she was at the books, amazed 
at the number — and certainly there were a good 
many. She found Sir Walter Scott’s shelf and 
a half and gave a little cry of dismay. “Oh, 
I shall never read them all ! ” Then she pointed 
to the gap. “That’s where mine comes from. 
I’ve brought it back.” It was The Heart of 
Midlothian. We talked about that. What 
struck her most about it was the change in Effie 
Deans after she had married her Staunton. 
She became fat and discontented. ‘ ‘ That might 


180 


MAINWARINO 


have happened to me,” she said, ‘ 4 with any- 
body else.” After a time of silence she broke 
out: “He doesn’t care for me at all. I don’t 
think he ever did after the very first. ’ ’ 

I told her that I had met him a few nights 
earlier at Leven House, and her eyes went quite 
pale. “Was he in London? Not at Montagu 
Square?” 

“No. He told me that he wasn’t staying 
there. He knew you were away.” 

“Yes, I told him I was going,” she said. 
Then she suddenly became vehement. It was 
evident to me that she had been thinking about 
her position. “I have almost made up my mind 
that I shall go away. I wanted to talk about it. 
I did talk to Mother, and she thinks I ought 
to. I don’t feel that I can go on. It is making 
me very unhappy. Mother didn’t know it was 
so bad until I told her. Of course she guessed 
something — not all.” 

“Did you tell her all, Lizzy?” She had been 
looking at me, her eyes hot with her wrongs ; but 
when I asked her that the expression in them 
changed. She looked down, hanging her head. 
“No,” she murmured, “I didn’t tell her every- 
thing. How could I ? ” 


LIZZY BIDS ME GO 


181 


She touched me, and wrung my conscience too. 
“You think I have done you wrong, Lizzy!” 
Her look was full of grief, but she did not falter. 

“I think we have both been wrong.” I 
turned away my head. 

“I didn’t tell you before I went home,” she 
said, “that Lady Whitehaven came to see me. 
I wanted to — but I felt I must think it out by 
myself. ’ ’ 

“She told me she had been, the other night,” 
I said. Lizzy’s- voice was sharp. 

“Did she tell you what she had talked 
about ? ’ ’ 

“No. I didn’t ask her.” 

“She talked about nothing but you and me. 
She seemed to think it made it all right. It 
was that that made me think it must be 
wrong. ’ ’ I groaned. 

“So it is, my dear. God knows I didn’t 
mean to hurt you.” She started forward and 
knelt before me. My face was in my hands, 
and I felt the warmth of her cheeks upon them. 

“The only happiness I have ever known has 
been from you,” she said. “I don’t know what 
I shall do without you. What am I to do!” 

It was she who took my hands from my face — 


182 


MAIN WARING 


but it was my own act that made me look at 
her — see her beautiful eyes filled with tears, and 
show her mine. 

“Ah, my dear, my dear, how can I tell?” I 
said brokenly, and took her in my arms. There 
she stayed while her despair tore at her. If we 
had kissed then, we might have been forgiven. 
We knew it was for the last time. But, by a 
miracle, we did not. 

She withdrew herself gently from my arms 
and crouched on the floor, her arm resting on 
my knee. 

“Now I know that we must part,” she said. 
But it was my turn. 

“We don’t part, Lizzy, — now, until I know 
what you are going to do. I can bear anything 
that you can bear, if I only know what it is.” 

She said that she would stay as she was at 
Montagu Square unless she was forced to go 
by anything fresh. If he made another scene 
with Lady Whitehaven she would leave him. If 
she left him she should go back into service and 
begin life all over again under her maiden name. 
She promised me that I should know from time 
to time where she was and how she was. And 
I was to tell her too about myself — whether ill 
or well. In fact, we might write to each other 


LIZZY BIDS ME GO 


183 


now and then, and she was to receive, and re- 
turn, her books — but that was all we could do. 

It was dreadfully on her conscience that we 
had put ourselves fatally in the wrong; but I 
couldn ’t have her think that. I told her of my- 
self that I had never been in love before — that 
I should never love any one else. That she ac- 
cepted. I said that she had married Mainwar- 
ing against her own judgment and on a false 
pretence; that she had been an obedient wife 
to him until he had ceased to want her company. 
That too she allowed. But when I tried to per- 
suade her that her love for me was inevitable 
and justifiable, she shook her head sadly, and 
would not be convinced. “No, no — it is wrong. 
I love you, but I ought not. And there’s an- 
other thing. Supposing I could do it, I am sure 
I ought not to let you marry me.” 

“If you could do it, Lizzy,” I said, “you 
would have to marry me.” 

I could see that she was not convinced; but 
she threw that part of the puzzle overboard. 
“Well — I can’t. So we won’t talk about it.” 
She got up slowly. “ Now I must go, ’ ’ she said. 

The pain at my heart was like the wailing of 
the wind. I carried on from point to point like 
a child. The one thing that helped me through 


184 


MAINWARINGr 


just now was the certainty that before she left 
me she would kiss me. One can act a miracle 
once — but not twice. 

And she did it. In her hat and jacket, with 
her veil thrown up, she lay in my arms, close 
against my heart, and gave me her cold lips. 
It was like kissing a dead woman. And that 
was the first and the last. I carried her bag 
to the omnibus, and saw her into the machine. 
My last view was of her pale, sad face. She 
looked at me, did not raise her hand. I saw 
her lips move. 

I have no earthly doubt but she was right. 
I had put her in the wrong, and now she put 
me in the right — so far as a wrong can be un- 
done. In the way of a man, I had made her 
happy only to make her more unhappy after- 
wards. I had not helped her in the slightest 
degree, and by my wrongdoing had made it im- 
possible that I should help her again. As peo- 
ple look on these things nowadays, I should per- 
haps have talked her into surrender. I had 
passion enough to do it — or I should have had 
with any other woman. But I can remember 
how I looked upon that woman. Her purity 
was a part of her beauty. It was the unearthly 
element in her which made her walk this world 


LIZZY BIDS ME GO 185 

before me as if she was not of it. Certainly I 
was not better than most young men, though I 
had never had anything but disgust for pur- 
chased love. But I could not have made Lizzy 
Mainwaring a sinner, or been a sinner myself 
with her. That is no virtue in me, but of 
the nature of her being. If the goddesses of 
Greece are the prototypes of ourselves, in Lizzy 
Mainwaring you may read Hestia, the Goddess 
of the Hearth. She stood in her modesty, 
beauty and truth for the Moral Law. 


XV 


REFLECTION S OF A BANISHED LOVES 

FTER three days and nights of misery 



and intolerable restlessness, which only 


sheer cowardice kept me from spending opposite 
the house on Montagu Square, I suddenly re- 
covered my courage and hope. I don’t know 
how that was. I woke on a certain morning 
full of the privilege of my pain. To know that 
I was suffering what I was for the sake of the 
most beautiful woman in London seemed to me 
at the moment sufficient reward. I don’t say 
that it lasted — indeed it didn’t — but it gave 
me time to collect myself, and a chance also of 
seeing that my hand was not played out. 

I had all sorts of schemes in my head, but 
for the moment I decided to spend a week with 
my sister in Somerset. She had married a rich 
parson named J agow and lived in a place called 
Weston Court. I wrote to Lizzy that I was 
going. 

Agatha was older than me by five years — 
which is a good deal when it means that she 


188 


A BANISHED LOVER 


187 


was five-and-thirty. Jagow I don't doubt was 
ten years more. She respected my indepen- 
dence so much that she had no reprobation for 
my desultory way of living, which was one of 
the things about myself I was resolved to 
amend. But Agatha, who lived among great 
people herself — being undoubtedly ‘‘county" — 
took it for granted that, having enough to live 
upon, I did nothing, and mixed with my kind — 
that is, her kind. So she plunged me into talk 
of the Whitehavens and all the rest of them; 
and then I found that Jagow was following 
Mainwaring's career with intelligent interest. 
He told me what he was doing up at Jarrow 
all this while. Evidently, while he disapproved 
of him, being naturally a Conservative, he had 
a respect for the position he was making for 
himself. “A discreditable beginning," said 
Jagow, “but we must remember that it was a 
beginning. The man has ability, and is doing 
better. We may yet see him a respectable 
member of society. I must say that he has 
ended the strikes very satisfactorily, and so far 
as I can judge he has done it alone. The Times 
had a leader about him the other morning. It 
said that Mainwaring had made a great stride 
forward." 


188 


MAINWARING 


I learned that there had been a general strike 
for a week, during which negotiations presum- 
ably went on. Then Mainwaring made a great 
speech in Monkwearmouth, announcing that it 
was all over. The leaders of the Union had 
accepted the masters ’ terms, and work was re- 
sumed the next day. That night Mainwaring 
was in the House, and had a great reception. 
My brother-in-law read me Hardman’s speech 
of compliment, the hero’s reply, and Bentivo- 
glio’s caustic summing-up of the whole — Right- 
eousness and Peace kissing each other, and so on. 
He did not forget the parable of the Prodigal 
Son, either. 

I found all this rather artless and delivered 
it as my opinion that Mainwaring had probably 
engineered the general strike for the purpose 
of composing it afterwards. That shows how 
angry I was; for that was, in so many words, 
what The Messenger said. My brother-in-law 
looked at me as if I was blaspheming. To him 
a successful politician was a figure from an il- 
lustrated Bible. He might be badly drawn, but 
his origin put him above criticism. 

Agatha spoke of the Whitehavens* friendship 
for him, and seemed to think that excused a 
great deal. She told me that Lord Gerald 


A BANISHED LOVER 


189 


Gorges was at home — which I had not known. 
She fondly supposed that the young man was 
going to marry Lady Mary — unless, she said, 
Mainwaring did! She knew nothing of the 
lady-mother’s little affairs of the heart, good 
soul, and it wasn’t for me to enlighten her. 
But I saw trouble ahead if that news was true, 
and dreaded some share of it for Lizzy. 

My dear girl wrote to me once while I was 
at Weston. She told me that Mainwaring was 
at home. “But I see very little of him. He 
only has his breakfast here — I don’t know what 
time he comes home. I don’t think he is happy 
with his success. He is going to law, I think. 
Against The Messenger. He has not spoken 
to me about it — but that is what I hear. I am 
happiest when I am reading. I have finished 
Guy Mannering.” She had chosen that one 
herself for the sake of its name. “When you 
come back I should like The Bride of Lammer- 
moor. I hope she was happier than I have 
been.” 

I wondered what Mainwaring was going to do 
with The Messenger . Probably an action for 
libel. They must have gone one step too far, 
and given him his chance. He was not the man 
to miss that. But I read on. 


190 


M AIN W ARIN G 


“We had a dinner-party on Tuesday. Lord 
and Lady Whitehaven came, and a daughter, 
Lady Mary Pointsett — pretty and delicate-look- 
ing. The lady did not speak to me except to 
say, ‘Good evening, Lizzy/ as she came in. 
There were other people there — so we had men 
to help wait, and a man to carve. I am afraid 
things are as bad as ever. He is not happy, I 
can see, and not at all well. They talked of 
The Messenger case. He said that he should 
win it, and then there would be a surprise for 
everybody. I heard him tell the lady that. He 
went to Court on Wednesday. The daughter, 
Lady Mary I mean, was very quiet, and seemed 
to watch him all dinner-time. She hardly spoke 
to the men beside her. When they went away 
he went with them, and I don’t know when he 
came back. I should die if I lived like that. 
I’m glad I am different, and would not change 
for anything in the world. You would not wish 
me to, would you ? ’ ’ She signed herself ‘ ‘ Y ours 
sincerely, Lizzy.” No, indeed, I would not 
have wished her to change from what she was. 

I felt restless and miserable again, and the 
placid atmosphere of well-ordered Weston only 
exasperated my complaint. I found that smug 
life of superior beings made me much worse. 


A BANISHED LOVER 


191 


Well-ordering, too, came into my ideal — I 
dreamed of it all day long — an infinite, loving 
care for detail, but redeemed from frivolity by 
the fact that one did all the work oneself. After 
all, you can do no more than fulfil well the laws 
of your being. But if you pay other people to 
fulfil them for you, how are you or the world 
the better for them? It is a belief of mine that, 
impalpably, imperceptibly, the nation, even the 
world, is the better for one family life lived 
piously and diligently. I would burn in defence 
of that. But to order your life by means of paid 
servants ! You might as well hire a man to be- 
get your children, as a nurse to bring them up, 
or a pedagogue to launch them upon the world. 
These ideas, however, were not for Weston 
Court; so I took them away with me, back to 
London. 

I had a book on hand — indeed, it had been 
long on hand: a study of comparative Ethics. 
I was trying to study the morality of Birds, 
and was really interested in it, until my own 
affairs compelled me to study rather the ethics 
of my own species. I was now much more pre- 
pared to compare the morality of classes of 
men: the standards, for instance, of Lizzy 
Mainwaring and Rose Whitehaven — what a sub- 


192 


MAINWARIN G- 


ject there! And that brought me to my own 
morality, and Main waring *8, and advised me 
to set my soul’s house in order before I could 
safely discuss those of other people. 

There was continuously before my mind’s eye 
the figure of that noble girl, one of the most 
lovely of God’s creatures, engaged all her days 
of perfect growth in menial tasks — scrubbing, 
rubbing, washing, sweeping, laying fires, raking 
ashes, and goodness knows what besides. In no 
way did I think her degraded — on the contrary, 
she made the acts beautiful by performing them. 
That she should be hired to do them — that did 
not degrade her, either; but knowing very well 
how little I could bear it that she should serve 
me so, unless in equivalents I could serve her, 
so it seemed now to me that I had better fit 
myself for her companionship, and hire no 
more. Let me see if I could keep my rooms 
clean as well as myself ; cook my meals as well 
as eat them. I took immediate steps to that 
end, and found myself very much the better for 
them. A friend of mine, to whom I confided 
my readjustments and the motives of them, 
thought that I ought to go further. “You 
should, to be really self-sufficient,” he said, 


A BANISHED LOVER 


193 


“make your own trousers, and wash your own 
shirts. I am not sure that you would not be 
well-advised to kill your own mutton, if not to 
grow it, and brew your own beer. The roof of 
your house might be a good place in which to 
grow the corn to make your hot rolls of. But 
you will come to that by degrees, no doubt. 
The only drawback I can see immediately to 
your plans is that you will cut into the hours 
which you owe to the Morals of Birds. Perhaps 
the subject does not press ?” I said that it did 
not. 

Pressing or not, I ‘took it in hand, and found 
it a good distraction until I had a better. I had 
not long to wait for that. In the autumn the 
case of Mainwaring v. Copestake and another 
came on for hearing. That was in November, 
and I am now come to the end of July. For 
the interval, the House rose in the middle of 
August. Mainwaring went out of town with 
the rest of the great world — and I don’t know 
where, nor could Lizzy tell me. She, having 
taken what holiday she thought she was entitled 
to, remained in Montagu Square, with a care- 
taker or one or other of the maids. As for me, 
I couldn’t take myself away from her neigh- 


194 


MAINWARING 


bourhood, even though I could not see her. 
Therefore the Morals of Birds did something 
towards the morals of one exceedingly lovesick 
man ; and Lizzy reached The Fair Maid of Perth 
in her studies. 


XVI 


MAIN WARING IN THE BOX 

M AINWARING’S case was in the viva- 
cious hands of Sir James Bustle, Q. C., 
as leader. It was an action for damages for 
libel contained in certain leading and certain 
descriptive articles in The Messenger . The 
gist of them all was that Mainwaring had been 
double-dealing at Jarrow, being unofficially but 
really there on the part of the Government, and 
secretly in the pay of the Trade Unions engaged 
in the strike or in sympathy with the strikers. 
It was said, among other things, that he was 
the paid representative of the Culgaith colliers 
in Parliament, in receipt from them of £300 a 
year; that his election expenses had been paid; 
that he had organized, directed and maintained 
the Culgaith strike, and was at Jarrow for the 
same purpose. Finally, it had been said in so 
many words that he had persuaded the other 
labour organizations of Jarrow to join the strik- 
ing body, and bring about a paralysis of social 
life in that place. He had been called a nihilist, 

195 


196 


MAINWARINGr 


an anarchist, an International and a great deal 
more — but it was said, he laughed at such 
things. The libel lay in the charge of duplicity 
— false dealing with the Government which em- 
ployed him, equally false dealing with the Trade 
Unions. He took hire from both, and cheated 
each. That, I think, was the charge — though 
perhaps I am not lawyer enough to apprehend 
it exactly. It lost nothing in the relating by 
Sir James, and occupied the Court for three or 
four days. Mainwaring was under cross-exam- 
ination for the whole of one of them. 

I was in court that day, unable to keep out 
of it for fear that he might be asked about his 
private life, and Lizzy involved in the hateful 
business. It was full to the doors — half the 
House of Commons was there, I should think, 
and all Mainwaring ’s friends. The Duchess 
of Leven and her sister were beside the Judge; 
with Lady Whitehaven I saw her daughter, who 
looked dreadfully ill — I never saw eyes in a 
girl like hers — fixed and sightless, like blind 
blue flowers. What the woman was about to 
bring her there, God knows. I am not good 
enough psychologist myself to understand the 
twists in the mind of a woman of fashion. 

Mainwaring was at his best. He looked well 


M AIN W ARIN G IN THE BOX 197 

and spoke well. He was quite at his ease, and 
answered his questions simply. He gave the 
impression of concealing nothing because there 
was nothing to conceal. In chief, he related the 
whole business — or so it appeared. The Prime 
Minister had sent for him, he said, knowing his 
interest in labour questions. He saw him at the 
Treasury ; with him had been the President of 
the Board of Trade, some permanent officials, 
whom he named, and a secretary or two. The 
Prime Minister had begun by saying that the 
Government was interested in the dispute, col- 
laterally rather than directly. There were 
Government yards in the district, and Govern- 
ment contracts in the affected works. It was 
not advisable, it was against policy, that the 
Government should intervene directly in a trade 
dispute — “a most inconvenient precedent/ ’ he 
said, might be grounded upon such action. He 
then asked Mainwaring if he was personally in- 
terested in the matter. Mainwaring replied, 
Not at all, except in so far as he was, and was 
known to be, in sympathy with workmen. The 
P. M. then said that that answer cleared the 
ground. The Government, predisposed to sym- 
pathy itself with labour, desired just such a 
legate. He then explained at length the line he 


MAINWARING 


198 

wished to be followed, and ended by asking 
Mainwaring to undertake it. Mainwaring re- 
plied without hesitation that he would, on con- 
dition that he had a free hand. There was some 
conversation upon that — in fact, a good deal. 
Finally, it was reduced to heads on paper, and 
initialled. His expenses would be paid, but he 
was not to be bound by the result. He produced 
the half-sheet of paper, and it was read in Court. 
After that he gave his account of his embassy, 
and gave it admirably. Up to a point, accord- 
ing to him, all went well. “I kept order in the 
place. I knew how to do that, for I had done 
it before. The men trusted me, and followed 
me ; for they knew me and what I had done be- 
fore. I was in a fair way to succeed — to serve 
the Government, which I believed to be honest, 
and the men, whom I knew to be so; but — ” 
There he stopped. “But you failed V 9 That 
was Sir James Bustle. “But I failed. ,, That 
was Mainwaring; and there for a moment he 
stopped, and then went on, gathering cold vehe- 
mence as he spoke — picking it up, as an express 
locomotive picks up cold water and turns it to 
energy and speed. “There were forces against 
me, forces that worked in the dark. There were 
men there who cared for neither side, nor for 


MAIN WARING IN THE BOX 199 


right, nor for wrong; men who lusted to bring 
me down into the dust, and would hesitate at 
nothing to achieve it. In my absence upon the 
vital point — while I was in London engaged 
with them that had sent me — my enemies suc- 
ceeded in making themselves enemies of my 
country. A general strike was declared, and 
for a week Revolution was in the air. If I was 
able to tread out the torch of civil war, it is 
no thanks to them.” On that Sir James 
sharply sat down; the great Sir Vernon Parke 
hitched up his gown, as he might have girded 
his loins, and like a Renaissance David faced 
his black-bearded Goliath. 

After the preliminaries, very short and un- 
important, Sir Vernon, at his airiest, planted 
a dart. 

“You are, I think, a member of the Reform 
Club, Mr. Mainwaring?” 

“I am.” 

“And of one or two other clubs, I think V\ 

“Of one or two other clubs.” 

“Of one in particular known as the Green 
Cloth Club?” 

“Of that one, yes.” 

“You play card-games there? Games of 
chance ? * 9 


200 


MAINWARINGr 


“ Games of chance and occasionally games of 
skill. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘No doubt, no doubt. But let me deal with 
games of chance first. Can you tell me some 
games of chance which you play at the Green 
Cloth? Do you play baccarat ?” 

“I have played it there / 1 

“No doubt. Faro?” 

“Faro also.” 

“Hazard?” 

“Yes, I have shaken the bones there.” 

“Ah. You have shaken them to some pur- 
pose, I fancy.” 

“I have shaken them to a purpose which I 
have not always brought off.” 

“But on one occasion you have brought off, 
as you say, some £3,000?” 

“On one occasion I did.” 

1 ‘ When was that ? * ’ 

“Some time in April, that was.” 

“From whom did you bring off that substan- 
tial sum?” 

“Sir Hugh Perron lost it to me.” 

“And of course paid you?” 

“Of course.” 

“Thereupon, Mr. Mainwaring, you wrote, I 


M AIN W ARIN G IN THE BOX 201 


believe, to the Radical Association in your con- 
stituency, renouncing your salary ?” 

“I did not, indeed.” 

“Let us be sure of that, if you please. You 
did renounce your salary?” 

“I had no salary from the Radical Associa- 
tion.” 

“Had you, or had you not, quarterly pay- 
ments from your constituency?” 

“I had quarterly payments from an organiza- 
tion of which I was secretary.” 

“What organization was that?” 

“The Culgaith Miners’ Union.” 

“Ah. And those payments you renounced?” 
“I did.” 

“When did you renounce them?” 

“Last January.” 

“Before you renounced them had you brought 
off any purpose of yours at the Green Cloth 
Club?” 

“I had not.” 

“You play games of chance elsewhere, I be- 
lieve?” 

“Sometimes.” 

“Where, sir?” 

“At the houses of my friends; occasionally 
at my own house. ’ ’ 


202 


MAINWARINGr 


“Can you tell the jury of an occasion when 
you brought off some purpose ?” 

Mainwaring paused, as if he was reflecting 
whom he should betray. Then he said slowly 
and distinctly, “ I won a shilling from Lord 
Whitehaven at Snooker-pool. But that is a 
game of skill, Sir Vernon, as you know.” 
There was a murmur over that. Sir Vernon 
Parke was known to be fond of billiards by 
every barrister in court. I saw old Whitehaven 
crimson with joy. But Sir Vernon grew nasty. 

“Did you ever play baccarat at Leven House, 
Mr. Mainwaring?” 

“Yes, I did.” 

“Did you win, or lose?” 

“I did both.” 

i 1 How much have you won there ? ’ 9 

“I can’t tell you. I have kept no count.” 

“How much have you lost there?” 

“The Duke may tell you that.” 

“Or perhaps the Duchess?” 

“I daresay she will, if you ask her. She is 
here.” 

“Your means, Mr. Mainwaring, are small?” 

“Very small.” 

“You live upon what you earn?” 

“Upon what I make — yes.” 


MAIN WARING IN THE BOX 203 


“Your friends have assisted you?” 

“They have been very good.” 

“The Duchess of Leven in particular?” 

“The Duchess of Leven likes my politics and 
believes in me.” 

“Why did you renounce your salary as Secre- 
tary to the Association in Culgaith?” 

“Because I desired to serve the State rather 
than a private body.” 

“Did you give up your duties in respect of 
which you were paid?” 

“No.” 

“Do you hold those duties to be consistent 
with service of the State?” 

“I do indeed, Sir Vernon, and that is where 
you and I are not likely to agree.” 

He was pressed on this at great and weari- 
some length, but was not hurt by anything to 
be had from him. ‘ ‘ I conceive, ’ ’ he said, ‘ ‘ that 
I am serving the State if I enable the State to 
deal fairly by hard-working and distressed citi- 
zens.” That was applauded. 

So far Parke had touched the fringes of his 
matter. If his object was to show that Main- 
waring was a needy adventurer — which I knew 
to be quite true — he had not done it. Mainwar- 
ing had been too wary for him. Now he tackled 


204 


MAINWARINGf 


him upon his politics, which was, so to speak, 
closing with his adversary. He left his French 
career out altogether, either not knowing much 
about it or as thinking it would not tell with 
the jury, and began instead with the riot in 
Trafalgar Square. 

“Be your opinions what they may have been, 
you took a prominent part in that meeting ?” 

“I took a part.” 

“You spoke at that meeting?” 

“Yes.” 

“And yours was the last speech before the 
rioting?” 

“Mine was the speech interrupted by the 
police.” 

“Were your last words before you left the 
plinth, ‘To hell with the policed ” 

“I should not be surprised. It is a term of 
endearment with us in Ireland.” 

“But you were not in Ireland, Mr. Mainwar- 
ing. You were in Trafalgar Square. Did you 
use those words?” 

“They are the sort of words I should use 
when I saw the police provoking bloodshed.” 

“Did you use them, sir?” 

“How can I tell you? I use words of that 
kind when I can’t fasten my shirt-collar. The 


MAINWARING IN THE BOX 205 


police, who were mounted, were hustling the 
people. It was a dangerous moment.” 

“You have not yet answered my question, 
sir.” 

“Sir Vernon, I am a quick-tempered man — 
what I may or may not have said when I saw 
the police undoing all my work I leave to your 
imagination. It was not a moment for a man to 
remember his words.” 

“You say that you don’t remember whether 
you called out, ‘To hell with the police!’ or 
not?” 

“I do say so.” 

He was pressed as to what he did next, but 
all that he could be got to say was that he was 
trying to keep the people quiet. Then came the 
great helmet affair. “Did you give the order, 
‘Helmets, boys!’?” 

“I did that.” 

“And did you set an example by bonneting 
a policeman from behind?” 

Mainwaring’s dark eyes shone; he bent his 
head slightly forward, in a way familiar to me. 
“I did that, sir.” 

“And upon that a dangerous riot ensued, for 
your share in which you were tried and sent to 
prison?” 


206 


MAIN WARING 


Mainwaring pushed his head further forward 
and then thrust it upwards so that his forelock 
was flung back. 

“Upon that, my good sir, a good-humoured 
game of shuttlecock took place with policemen’s 
helmets, instead of a bloody attack upon their 
heads; and because I made them ridiculous in- 
stead of dead men, they never forgave me.” 
He had thrown out Sir Vernon Parke as I had 
seen him at Marseilles throw out the head- 
waiter with the bill. 

He had no real difficulties after that. His 
conduct of the strike at Culgaith had really been 
admirable, and he was able to show that it was 
so. It was not put to him that he had really 
made that strike in order to make himself, 
which Lizzy knew to be the fact, and which he 
had practically admitted to me was a fact. 
That charge was made against him upon the 
Jarrow strike, and he had no trouble in dis- 
posing of it. He had only gone to Jarrow be- 
cause the Government had sent him ; the general 
strike had begun in his absence. He flatly de- 
nied that he had made any suggestion of such a 
move to anybody at Jarrow. Names, meetings, 
speeches were put to him. There was nothing 
to be got from him, for the simple reason, I 


MAIN WABIN G IN THE BOX 207 


believe, that he had not done anything. I had 
the best of reasons for knowing that he went to 
Jarrow unwillingly and left it as soon as he 
could. He couldn’t bear being away from Lady 
Whitehaven for an hour. But that part of his 
life did not come in. At the end he rose once 
more and gave Sir Vernon a piece of his mind. 
“You waste your time, Sir Vernon. You can- 
not get out of me an admission of what I have 
not done. I could have procured a general strike 
at Jarrow as easily as you could believe it of 
me, and far more easily than it was procured 
by the rascals who procured it in my absence. 
If you really desire to know the facts you will 
hear them from a witness in this Court — but I 
can hardly suppose that you do.” 

Sir Vernon Parke sat down. Evidence from 
the Treasury concluded the day. The next day 
ended the case. 

I came out with the crowd and saw Mainwar- 
ing’s ovation. He was received like a victori- 
ous general, but took it stiffly, without move- 
ment of a muscle of his face. He just touched 
the brim of his hat and pushed a way through 
the hall for the ladies of his party. I saw the 
Duchess on one side of him, and Lady Mary on 


206 


MAIN W ARIN G 


the other. Presently I saw something else, 
which explained why he was so angry. Lady 
Whitehaven was under the escort of Lord 
Gerald Gorges! He also was scowling. Be- 
tween her two lovers I felt sorry for that frail 
and pretty countess. But the Duchesr vas in 
overflowing spirits. She saw me. “Hjw d’ye 
do? Wasn’t it too comic? I haven’t been so 
entertained for years. Do come in tomorrow. 
They say it will be over. I say it’s over now. 
Don’t forget. Come in about ten. I’d love you 
to be at dinner — but the table would collapse 
if it had one more plate. Good-bye — I ’m going 
to feed him up!” What a woman! 


XVII 


THE SURPRISE PACKET 

I REACHED the Court at ten, and just found 
a seat. Already the place was like the 
opera, or say, the Horse Show on the Jumping 
Day. Everybody seemed to know everybody. 
Sir Vernon Parke came in at ten-fifteen, evi- 
dently fussed. 

Shortly afterwards Lord Gerald Gorges 
ushered in Lady Whitehaven. He stiffly handed 
her over to the care of the usher, and immedi- 
ately left her. 

I saw her look appealingly at him, softly, and 
asking for human treatment; I saw her look 
after him with infinite tenderness. He neither 
answered the appeal nor seemed sensible of her 
following gaze. He bowed before her, turned 
and went out of the Court. I saw what it was. 
He laid his claim to escort upon her, but would 
have no truck with Mainwaring. My heart, as 
Homer says, was divided between pity for a 
woman in such a pass and scorn for one who 
could put herself there. She had a moment of 

209 


210 


MAINWARINGr 


struggle; I saw her swallow convulsively; then 
her straying hapless eyes met mine, and she 
was in her world again. She bowed graciously 
to me, as I rose in my place. She had her 
daughter with her. Soon afterwards the Duch- 
ess swam in, full of the pride of life as that is 
known to pink peonyhood. She behaved very 
badly, as I supposed she had a right — kissed 
freely, kissed her hand to a man in the court, 
talked nineteen to the dozen, pulled herself 
about, patting here, smoothing there, plucking 
at laces and chains. Every eye was upon her, 
and she knew it — and behold, it was very good. 

Mainwaring strolled in at the stroke of half- 
past ten, and gazed calmly round the court. He 
saw me and nodded without any pleasure in the 
performance. He caught the Duchess’s eye and 
bowed elaborately ; he caught Lady White- 
haven ’s and nearly bowed himself in half. She, 
desperately endeavouring, pretended it was all 
right. Mary Pointsett’s looks devoured him, 
but he took no notice of her. Besides him on the 
seat below the bench was a black-haired, sleek 
young man whom I had not seen on the pre- 
vious day. He was very spruce, but did not 
look a gentleman. I should have guessed him 
an article clerk except that Mainwaring talked 


THE SURPRISE PACKET 


211 


vehemently to him for minutes at a time. 

Then with a call of 4 4 Silence ! Silence ! ’ ’ and 
a general rising, the Lord Chief Justice came 
in, a wonderful old relic, thoroughly in his ele- 
ment. He bowed to the ladies, he leaned for- 
ward with a whispered gallantry for the Duch- 
ess. His saurian eye swept up Lady White- 
haven and her pretty girl. One could have 
sworn that the handkerchief which he always 
carried, and frequently to his nose, was rarely 
scented. No man of his day looked more 
wicked, or was less so, I believe, than he. But 
he enjoyed his reputation, every wave of it, and 
would have been infinitely disturbed not to be 
thought an old rake. When he was composed, 
and his papers before him, he looked over his 
glasses at the learned counsel, and while Sir 
James sat still, and took snuff, Sir Vernon 
Parke rose in his stead, and I knew that some- 
thing had happened between the adjournment 
and the morning. 

Sir Vernon in his most restrained and 
rounded manner explained that something had. 
His clients, he said, after the examination of 
yesterday, had been convinced that a mistake 
had been made, and like honest men were anx- 
ious, at the first possible moment, to repair it, 


212 


MAINWARING 


so far as that lay in their power. The conduct 
of a great journal, a great daily journal, un- 
doubtedly must tread a narrow pathway be- 
tween observation and inference. It must 
tread that pathway exposed to the gusts of 
political excitement, of political passion ; it must 
frequently be impeded, sometimes obstructed by 
popular prejudice or strong party-feeling. 
Here he enlarged on parties in politics, and the 
Lord Chief Justice, joining his hands, placed 
the tips of his fingers against his lips, closed 
his eyes and apparently slumbered. From that 
he turned to the London Messenger and praised 
it warmly, but tempered his encomium with 
gentle regret that so very noble a career should 
be checked by an error of judgment whose very 
enormity, did one but consider it calmly, pro- 
ceeded from a rigid standard of political pro- 
priety. His clients, in fact, expected too much 
from public men. They preached a Counsel of 
Perfection, it might be said. They were con- 
cerned for the credit of the Administration, as 
such, and the more profoundly they disagreed 
with the opinions of the party in power, the 
more deeply anxious were they. He then spoke 
of Mainwaring’s record, more in sorrow than 
in anger. He reminded his Lordship that he 


THE SURPRISE PACKET 213 

had heard that at length from the plaintiff’s 
own lips. He need not dwell upon it now, upon 
the recklessness which endangered the peace in 
Trafalgar Square and had brought upon Mr. 
Mainwaring the punishment of riot and outrage. 
A great many more facts which, as he said, he 
need not recall to memory, he proceeded to re- 
call at length. Finally, having shown Main- 
waring to be a pirate living from hand to mouth, 
a beast of prey and an Irish adventurer, he came 
to the point. His clients were now convinced 
that, however reasonable the allegations had 
been upon which they proceeded, they were alle- 
gations not founded upon fact. Mr. Mainwar- 
ing, they now believed, acted upon the instruc- 
tions and in the interests of the Treasury. He 
was not in the hire of the Trade Unions. He 
had no part in promoting the general sti^ke. 
These things had been credibly reported to the 
London Messenger , and honestly, though sadly, 
believed. The proprietors and editor of that 
great newspaper desired to withdraw all that 
had been said. They offered Mr. Mainwaring 
the most ample apology, and submitted them- 
selves to whatever pecuniary damages the Court 
might adjudge them. Thereupon Sir Vernon 
hitched up his gown and sat down upon it, los- 


214 


MAINWARINGr 


ing, apparently, all further interest in the case. 

Sir Janies Bustle, after shovelling in snuff 
with a series of sniffs which pierced one to the 
spine, rose in his place. He was glad to hear 
his learned friend; he was always glad to hear 
him ; but he was never so glad as when he heard 
him putting a good face upon a bad business. 
Here, he told the Court, was a business bad 
beyond example or belief. A series of long- 
continued and unceasing attacks had been made 
upon a distinguished public servant. No 
damages could be too severe, no apology could 
be adequate to such a disgraceful business. 
The admission today that the so-called facts in 
the possession of the London Messenger were 
miscalled facts could have been made on the 
day on which they were aimed at Mr. Mainwar- 
ing ? s reputation. Nobody knew that better 
than the clients of his learned friend. Of one 
thing he was confident — his learned friend 
could only have learned them last night or this 
morning; for he ventured to say — and then he 
allowed himself some five minutes of compli- 
ment to Sir Vernon Parke, who beamed upon 
him, and glanced at the Duchess. But after 
that Sir James grew cold and unkind. The 
thing could not stop so easily. Disgraceful im- 


THE SURPRISE PACKET 


215 


putations, amounting, he was not afraid to say, 
to conspiracy and treason, had been made 
against Mr. Mainwaring. He had been charged, 
and repeatedly charged, with having procured a 
general strike in the great industrial district of 
Jarrow. Such a charge, if true, was tanta- 
mount to accusing his client of engineering a 
civil war in this country. His client was in 
the hands of the Court, but he claimed the right 
of every man of honour, not only to clear him- 
self of sjich a monstrous charge, but also — and 
here Sir James rammed home his words with 
a slapping hand — hut also of proving who in 
fact was the guilty person. For guilt there had 
been in this matter; a general strike had been 
engineered; and he was in a position to prove 
by whom that wicked action had been perpe- 
trated. His client felt, and he, Sir James, was 
of his opinion, that the matter could not stop in 
this Court. On that account, if on no other, 
he claimed the leave of his Lordship to put a 
witness in the box before he could consent to 
accept the terms offered him. 

Upon that there was a great to-do. No words 
of mine could picture the horror and grief of 
Sir Vernon Parke. He danced about like a 
gnat in a sunbeam; his cries of protest were 


216 


MAINWARINGr 


pregnant with hurt. Sir James took snuff and 
gazed stolidly before him, and I could see that 
the Lord Chief Justice had made up his mind. 
He spoke to the jury in his most silvery tones. 
He thought that they would agree with him, in 
view of what the learned counsel had said, that 
evidence of such a nature ought to be put upon 
record. They would shortly be called upon to 
assess damages for what was now admitted to be 
a very serious libel. He should take upon him- 
self to direct them to consider the evidence 
carefully and candidly, both that which might 
be given in chief and that which might be elicited 
in cross-examination. Then he sank back in his 
elbow-chair, and Sir James said, i 1 Stephen 
Fawcett Headworth.” 

The sleek-headed young man edged past 
Mainwaring, and went into the box. His name, 
he said, was Stephen Fawcett Headworth, and 
he was a journalist by profession. He had been 
on the staff of the London Messenger for some 
four years, but was not now. He had done a 
good deal of descriptive reporting for the paper. 
Yes, in particular, he had reported the Grateby 
murder, and had been instrumental in bringing 
the murderer to justice. He described the gen- 
eral course of a reporter’s duties. You were 


THE SURPRISE PACKET 217 


given a very free hand, he said, on the Messen- 
ger but were expected to be very smart. You 
had to give them facts; and if the facts weren’t 
there you had to hunt about until you found 
them. He had often reported meetings of Mr. 
Mainwaring ’s: one of them had been the riot in 
Trafalgar Square. He had taken the trouble to 
learn all about Mr. Mainwaring. You were ex- 
pected to do that. He was sent up to Jar row, 
he said, as soon as the strike became likely. 
When Mr. Mainwaring went there he himself 
returned to London in obedience to a telegram 
from Sir John. He saw Sir John at his private 
house in Cadogan Gardens that same night. 

“Sir John said, ‘ 1 think we’ve got that chap. 
He ’ll be in this up to the neck. ’ 

“I said, ‘I think he is going up for the Gov- 
ernment. ’ He said, ‘Bah! he’ll sell the Govern- 
ment if it pays him.’ I said, ‘He’s more cau- 
tious than he used to be.’ He said, “Pooh! a 
little encouragement.’ Then he said, after a 
bit, ‘We want a scoop out of this, Headworth. 
We have been on his tracks a long time. You 
have a chance here in a thousand. ’ I said that 
I should do my best, but that I was sure Mr. 
Mainwaring would be careful. Sir John said, 
‘Not when his blood is up. Not if you know 


218 


MAINWARIN Gr 


your business. When he smells the battle, you 
will see, hell say among the captains, Haha.’ 
And then he said, ‘Now, my boy, don’t you let 
me down. There’s a good deal in this. You 
have your way to make, and I will see to it — 
if it happens to be my way. ’ ’ ’ 

“What did you gather from that remarkable 
conversation, Mr. Headworth?” 

“I considered that Sir John was anxious for 
Mr. Mainwaring to commit himself.” 

‘ ‘ What did you understand Sir J ohn to mean 
by ‘Pooh, a little encouragement’?” 

The sleek young man adjusted his pince-nez. 
“I took him to mean that if Mr. Mainwaring 
had much to do with the Labour Organization 
he might go further than he intended. ’ ’ 

“Is that — did you take that to be the whole 
of his meaning?” 

“No, sir.” 

“Did you take him to have meant that if en- 
couragement of the sort could be given to Mr. 
Mainwaring, Sir John would not have been 
sorry for it?” 

The young man again fidgeted with his 
glasses, and spoke, when he did speak, with 
difficulty. “Well, Sir James, I knew that Sir 
John had a down upon Mr. Mainwaring.” 


THE SURPRISE PACKET 


219 


“A ‘down,’ sir? And what is a ‘down’?” 

“I mean that Sir John did not think well of 
him, or wish him well.” 

“Is your meaning that Sir John wished to 
see Mr. Mainwaring ruin himself politically? 
Don’t say, Yes, if you don’t mean it. I don’t 
at all wish to lead you. ’ ’ 

“I have heard Sir John say that the sooner 
Mr. Mainwaring dished himself the better.” 

“Sir John Copestake, then, to your under- 
standing, thought that there was a good chance 
of Mr. Mainwaring dishing himself, as you 
say?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“With 4 a little encouragement’?” 

“Oh, yes, sir; he certainly said that.” 

“And if you knew your business?” 

“Yes — he said that.” < 

“So I understand. Then he went on to ad- 
vise you, you say, not to ‘let him down.’ How 
did you understand that?” 

“In this way. There had already been a 
leader in the Messenger about the strike, saying, 
among other things, that now we were rea'ping 
the fruits of seeds sown in Culgaith. Sir John 
would not want to have to go back on that. ’ ’ 

“It was for you to see that he did not?” 


220 


M AIN W ARIN G 


“I understood it so, certainly.” 

“You understood, in fact, that if you were to 
‘make your way/ as he said, and you have told 
us, your way was to be his way?” 

“Yes, that is what I understood.” 

“And Sir John’s way was the ‘ dishing ’ of 
this member of Parliament, sent up to Jarrow 
on behalf of the Government ? Is that what you 
understod it to be?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“And you had a free hand?” 

“Oh, yes, Sir James.” 

“And on that you returned to Jarrow?” 

“Next morning.” 

“Now, tell my lord and the jury what you did 
in Jarrow.” 

The young man addressed the judge rather 
than the jury. The old Chief, his fingers to his 
lips, watched him solemnly over his glasses, un- 
commonly as an owl in a cage watches a circling 
mouse. The mouse whips round and round, 
panic increasing his pace. Just so this young 
man grew more and more glib, less and less 
assured. His hair dissolved in wisps upon his 
forehead; his glasses slid from his nose. I saw 
the dew of terror shining on his face. I dis- 


THE SURPRISE PACKET 221 

liked the young man extremely, and yet I was 
sorry for him. 

What he did, in effect, was to inspire the 
trade-union leaders with confidence that a gen- 
eral strike was what Mainwaring wanted, and 
that nothing else would so surely strengthen 
his hand. “I said to Boultby, my lord, 4 Mr. 
Mainwaring is the friend of you fellows. You 
give him an opening, heTL take it.’ They said 
to me, ‘Not likely, and put himself in your 
hands.’ I said, ‘Much he cares for us or a 
penny packet of us. Besides, I’m not talking 
to you now as The Messenger . I’m talking to 
you as a man.’ Boultby said, ‘We don’t care 
one damn for you — not a twopenny damn. But 
Dick Mainwaring is not the man he was at Cul- 
gaith.’ I said, ‘That’s all you know about him’ 
— and a lot more like that. And I believed it, 
for it was true. 

“I saw all of them, and several of them 
several times. And they decided on the general 
strike. Then all of a sudden Mr. Mainwaring 
went to London.” 

“Did Mr. Mainwaring know of the general 
strike being decided upon before he went to 
London?” 


222 


MAINWARING 


“I daresay he knew of it in a general way — 
suspected it, I mean — or expected it. But he 
didn’t have it from the trade-unions — not of- 
ficially. They were to have asked him to come 
in the next morning. But he went to London 
overnight — all in a hurry.” 

“Did you have any conversation with Mr. 
Main waring when he was in Jarrow?” 

“Never, sir. He didn’t know me, so far as I 
know. ’ ’ 

“Now, when this general strike was decided 
on, you wrote out your report and sent it off ? ’ ’ 

“Yes, sir — but I didn’t know that Mr. Main- 
waring had gone away.” 

“No — I understand. Did you telegraph your 
report?” 

“No, sir; too dangerous. I sent it up by 
train. One of our people took it. ’ ’ 

“In that you announced this general strike 
and said that Mr. Mainwaring was concerned in 
it?” 

The young man wetted his lips with his 
tongue, and immediately wiped them. “My 
copy was published next day, sir. ’ ’ 

“What did you say?” That came from the 
Lord Chief — in a voice such as Lazarus might 
have used from his charnel-house. The young 


THE SURPRISE PACKET £23 


man shook. “My Lord, I said that Mr. Main- 
waring was seeing the leaders of the men that 
morning.” The Court was dead quiet. Even 
the Duchess left herself alone. 

Sir James took up the tale. “There was a 
leading article in the Messenger as well as your 
report ?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“You did not write that?” 

“Oh, no, sir.” 

“Was it headed ‘Treachery’?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Was that based upon your report?” 

“I couldn’t say. It was based partly upon 
my copy, and partly on what they thought in 
the office.” 

“I see. And you have told us what they 
thought in the office. Well, Mr. Headworth, I 
don ’t know that I need trouble you any further 
— at present. ’ ’ 

Sir Vernon Parke was on his feet; but the 
Judge held up his hand. 

“One moment, Sir James. There are a few 
points I should like to clear up.” He turned 
to the witness as if he was a specimen under 
the microscope — as indeed at the moment he 
was — and enquired into the methods of the 


224 


MAIN WARING 


London Messenger. Head worth explained to 
him that the reporters ’ stories were always sub- 
ject to revision, and might he contracted or ex- 
panded as space required. He said that when 
you were known in the office you always had a 
free hand as to treatment; but that in special 
cases Sir John overlooked the copy himself. 
In the murder case referred to, and in the 
Badlesmere divorce case, he, Headworth, had 
travelled far outside his brief. He thought that 
all good descriptive writers did. Realism was 
the note of the Messenger — facts all the time. 

“And when facts were weak? — ” suggested 
his Lordship. 

“Oh, well, you can’t make facts, of course — ” 
the young man began. The Judge removed his 
spectacles to look at him. That was all he did, 
hut it sufficed. 

His lordship sank back in his chair, and Sir 
Vernon resumed his rage and scorn. He was 
very short. 

“You were dismissed from the service of the 
London Messenger ?” 

“I received notice to leave.” 

“To leave at once?” 

“I left the same day. I had three months’ 
salary in lieu of notice.” 


THE SURPRISE PACKET 225 

“But you have just told us that you received 
notice to leave ?” 

“I was told that my services would not be re- 
quired. ’ ’ 

“Was that before these proceedings were 
commenced, or after ?” 

“Before.” 

“When these proceedings were commenced, 
did you communicate with the plaintiff’s so- 
licitors?” 

“No, sir. They wrote to me. They asked 
me to call.” 

“And you told them what you have told us?” 

“Yes, in the course of conversation it all 
came out.” 

“And was anything said about terms, Mr. 
Headworth ? ’ 9 

“No, sir — nothing was mentioned.” 

“Bid you not receive thirty pieces of silver?” 

“No, sir, nor thirty pieces of copper, either.” 

“That will do, Mr. Headworth.” 

Parke made the best tale he could of it, but 
was heard with visible distaste by the Judge, 
and by a jury which had made up its mind long 
ago, and was longing to be free. The Judge, 
who could see with his eyes shut, was very im- 


226 


MAINWABING 


pressive and very short. He said that the de- 
fendants had done — at the instance of their 
learned counsel — the only thing that could be 
done, he need not say by men of honour ; let him 
say by men of the world. They admitted what 
they called a mistake, in fact. The Jury would 
consider in assessing the damages suffered how 
far those were aggravated by the sense of fact 
possessed by the remarkable young man, Mr. 
Headworth. He should not delay them now in 
discriminating between the acts of the agent, 
Headworth, and the principal. The principal 
was undoubtedly bound by his agent ’s acts, and 
had admitted that he was bound. What might 
be the upshot, elsewhere, of this case he was not 
enabled to say. So far as he was concerned, 
he should forward the evidence to the proper 
quarter. Upon the matter of damages he would 
only add one word. The plaintiff in this case 
was a distinguished public servant, with a 
career before him. There could be no doubt 
that it bade fair to be a brilliant career. How 
far the reckless or malevolent act of a news- 
paper could imperil that, it was difficult to say ; 
but it would be obvious to the jury that, uncon- 
tradicted, unchallenged, the charges which had 


THE SURPRISE PACKET 227 

been brought against the plaintiff’s integrity 
must have been fatal to it. 

The jury, without leaving the box, gave Main- 
waring £5,000. I looked at him. He sat like 
a man of marble, without expression in his face. 
People were standing up, all looking at him; 
women were waving their handkerchiefs, some 
were crying. He neither looked, nor moved. 


XVIII 


CUPS 

A PENCIL note from the Duchess had been 
handed me in court by the usher. It said, 
“The Duke can’t dine tonight, so you must! 
I know the F. (the Fenian) wants to see you. 
Isn ’t it all splendid ? H.L. ’ y 

The Duke of Leven, I know, had never been 
able to stand Mainwaring. He was a some- 
what bloodless, fastidious magnate, almost 
damned in his fair wife. He drew many lines 
— and one of them was across Mainwaring ’s 
name. I had bowed my acknowledgments to 
her enquiring face, and did as I was bid. 

As I walked up St. James’s Street I had the 
uneasy feeling upon me that I was being false 
to Lizzy ; and an impulse possessed me to throw 
over honour and the Duchess and make a bolt 
for Montagu Square. How would she have re- 
ceived me if I had obeyed it? With mute re- 
proach, or with gentleness, compassion and 
warm tears ? I thought that I knew, and in the 
228 


CUPS 


229 


same thought put away the impulse. Suppose 
that passion got the better of me — could I ever 
have got the better of the remorse that must 
have followed? Was not her conscience a part 
of her beauty— perhaps its price ? Could I bear 
to treat her as Mainwaring was treating her, 
as a lovely passing thing, for which he was 
lucky to have found a use, after he had done 
with her? To sacrifice her to my passion after 
he had used her for his would have put me 
lower than I now saw him. But I resolved to 
be done with these people as soon as I could. 
They stood between me and my religion. 

There was a great collection of political some- 
bodies in the long drawing-room. I saw the 
Prime Minister and his wife talking to the 
Duchess under the chandelier. Mainwaring 
was there too. The Duches gave me a finger 
and a nod. She didn’t seem to know me — but 
to assume that it was all right. I hoped that 
she didn’t think I was Mr. Headworth by any 
chance. The Groom of the Chambers had told 
me whom I was to take down, and where to sit, 
so I sought out my fate, Lady Mary Pointsett, 
and saw her just behind Mainwaring. I don’t 
think I knew anybody else there, except of 
course by sight. The Whitehavens were not 


230 MAINWARING 

in the room — she no doubt under orders, poor 
woman. 

Lady Mary had no use for me yet awhile, so 
I stood and considered her case. I knew her 
very slightly, though as I was a friend of her 
people’s I had seen her dozens of times. She 
was very pretty, very thin, very pale, the trans- 
lucent type of girl; like a palpable ghost, if 
I may say so. Her expression changed rapidly, 
as her thoughts raced in her. Sometimes she 
looked like a spirit of the fire, sometimes like a 
maid of the mist, sometimes like a reproach. 
She could be very attractive, had beautiful man- 
ners, facile enthusiasms, abundant sensibility. 
With all that she might have passed into safe 
marriage without incurable damage but for the 
possession of, or by, a theatrical mind. She 
had a theatrical mind. She passioned for the 
great gesture, and for ever saw herself filling 
the parts of high romance. She saw herself as 
the deserted wife, or abandoned mistress, so 
beautiful and so touching that she must by all 
means find the necessary blackguard. Or she 
was Juliet, and hunting a Romeo ; or Charlotte 
Corday, lacking only a man in a bath. In an 
evil hour — and I don’t know when the hour 
struck — she saw herself the muse of Mainwar- 


CUPS 


231 


ing. Recollection of the Tragic Comedians 
may have helped her : but I don’t think she read 
Meredith. It was something more elementary 
than that. Mind you, it is right to say that 
she did it all in perfect innocence. What she 
understood about her mother’s position I have 
no notion — but the fact that Mainwaring was a 
man of over forty and herself not one-and- 
twenty did not weigh with her at all. She did 
not know how old he was. He was a romantic 
hero, a Tristram to her Isoult ; and as she had no 
moral sense whatever, and no sense of humour 
either, there was no reason why she should sup- 
pose him to have them — as indeed he had them 
not. 

How should she have any moral sense? One 
must get it from somewhere, and probably one 
sucks it in at one ’s mother ’s breast. And what 
did she get at her mother’s breast? I looked 
about me with a kind of dismay at these deli- 
cately-coloured, half-dressed women, so extra- 
ordinarily good-looking, so liberal of their 
charms, so secure in themselves, and so free 
of themselves, arrogating so easily il talento as 
of right. Here was il talento , for instance, 
lightly accorded to this silly child by a mother 
who — if an y one in the world — knew what Main- 


232 


MAINWARING 


waring was. It was done as a matter of course. 
Mary wanted to go, and must go. But that was 
the way of it. I remember the utmost word of 
warning I ever heard Lady Whitehaven utter 
was, “Darling, don’t catch cold.” That was 
when the girl (in her teens at the time) was 
slipping out into the thickets at Wimbledon 
with a man called Harry Revel — a rattling ruf- 
fian who had lapped up women as a cat laps 
cream. As for the Duchess — I remembered 
that she thought it comic. This was the set, 
this was the world in which I now found myself 
— and then, where I stood, I had a vision of 
Lizzy in her maid’s black-and-white, in the 
kitchen of her husband’s dark house, reading 
Walter Scott under a gas-jet! Well, I may be 
a sentimentalist — I believe I am — but “a sud- 
den spring gushed in my heart,” and I blessed 
that temperate, beautiful, recollected creature. 

After all, as I have said, and insist, you can 
only fulfil the laws of your being. If you defy 
them you are a monster ; if you obey them, you 
justify Nature. And what are the laws of be- 
ing? I know, but two. To work and to have 
children. Fulfil those faithfully, and you are 
beautiful. And woe to who hinders you ! 


CUPS 


233 


They began to go down, so I presented myself 
to my fate. “A poor substitute for the hero of 
the day,” I said, but she accepted me gra- 
ciously, and began to talk about the case, and to 
ask me about Mainwaring until I was sick of the 
very name of him. It was not until my in- 
fatuated partner left me that anything occurred 
worth recording. Immediately the women were 
out of the room the Prime Minister picked up 
his glass of claret and carried it off with him 
to the society of a young fellow of Balliol, and 
of Constantine Jess, who was in his Cabinet as 
President of the Board of Trade, and whom, 
Lady Mary had told me, Mainwaring was to suc- 
ceed. Jess was to go to the House of Lords for 
that purpose. That might or might not be ; but 
so far as I had seen the great man had not 
thrown a word to Mainwaring all dinner time. 
He certainly had nothing to say to him now. 
He began a discussion about Mykenae and the 
French excavations in Delos, which occupied 
him till a late hour. 

Mainwaring, after sitting silent for some 
time, presently beckoned to me to sit by him — 
which I unwillingly did. I congratulated him 
upon the result, and thought he took it with 


234 


MAIN WARING 


bravado. i 1 Pshaw — it was child's play. The 
thing was too easy. But the cream of the joke 
is to come.” 

I asked him what was coming, and he said, 
“I shall have him before the Speaker in two or 
three days. That ought to be the end of him . ’ 1 
He said then that he had been waiting for him 
these two years. I asked him how he had found 
Headworth, and he stared at me. 4 ‘ Head- 
worth ! Why, I knew he was there all the time. 
Headworth is a nincompoop. But Copestake’s 
worth having. I’ve done more for the Govern- 
ment than they Ve ever done for me. ’ 9 

He had been drinking more than enough ; but 
filled and emptied his glass, and went glooming 
on. I could see that some devilish rat was 
gnawing at his vitals, and that he drank so that 
he might buy oblivion. Every now and again 
he shook his head, as if to shake his misery 
from his ears. Once he groaned. 

“ Aren’t you well?” I asked him, and he 
turned me faded eyes. 

“I’m in hell,” he said, “and have been this 
three months. And can’t move hand or foot to 
help myself.” 

That was as near as he had ever gone to 
speaking to me of his trouble. I didn’t want 


CUPS 


235 


to hear it, so made no answer. He took no no- 
tice of my silence, except to change the sub- 
ject. 

“That wasn’t what I wanted to see you about 
though.” 

“I can’t help you there,” I said, and he stared 
angrily, as if I had forgotten myself. 

“I wanted to ask you why you have left off: 
coming to my house.” If I was in for it, I 
would go straight in. 

“I can’t go to your house,” I said, “if your 
wife is to open the door to me.” 

He lifted his eyebrows high, and looked at 
the wine-glass twirling between finger and 
thumb. 

“Poor girl! She feels it. She is forsaken 
by everybody.” 

I said, “By you first, I think.” 

“You’re right there. But I could do no more 
than offer her the head of the table. You are 
witness that I offered her that.” 

I replied with heat, “I have been witness of 
more than I cared to see. I was present with 
Lady Whitehaven in your wife’s room when you 
came down and made a scene. Do you think she 
can sit at your table when that may be done at 
it?” 


236 


MAINWARINGr 


He took no notice. “I wish that you, Whit- 
worth, would come and stay with me for a time. 
It would oblige me.” He staggered me. 

“It might,” I said. “But it would oblige 
nobody else. The thing is out of the question. 
You don’t know what you are asking. At least, 
I hope not.” 

It was hardly believable that he hoped to re- 
lieve some strain on himself by putting one 
upon Lizzy — yet that was what he was doing. 
There was nothing in the world that Main- 
waring would not attempt if he desired to re- 
move something from his path. I did not real- 
ize that at the time, and the idea I had was that 
he wanted to get Lady Whitehaven to the house 
without protest — which though mute would 
have been sensible to him — from Lizzy. He 
thought (so I had it then) that if she had a 
lover of her own she would be “estopped,” as 
the lawyers say, from objecting to one of his. 
That, of course, was much too subtle for him. 
He went at hindrances head down, like a bull. 
The fact was, he hoped that I should run away 
with her. There he was a fool, for not know- 
ing Lizzy better; but in his present mood of 
baffled longing he was nothing but a fool. 

He must really have expected that I should 


CUPS 


237 


accept his proposal, for he seemed quite out of 
heart for a time. He drank again, without 
relish and to his visible deterioration. He 
flushed as much as so white a man could, and 
his eyes looked hot, as if there was thunder in 
them. He spoke to me — but I don’t think he 
knew who I was. ' 

“ You see how it is — and how it has been three 
weeks. That barber’s block keeps her under 
lock and key. She was brought to the court and 
fetched away again. She won’t speak to me, or 
open the door to me — she dare not. And I who 
have emptied my life into her lap ! Flesh-and- 
blood can’t stand it. I’m not to be made a fool 
of. You know better. Let her know it. Let 
her choose between a man and a kissing-stick. 
Gerald Gorges is about the age of that child 
upstairs. I was brought up in a country where 
men coped with men. Women were fought for 
— but how can you fight a thing in stays ? I am 
going there now — I’ll not be trifled with. If 
she refuses me she shall rue it. I have black 
Irish in me — black Irish blood — and it was dis- 
tilled in Provence. That’s a potent liquor, let 
me tell you. A drop of that will scald. Let her 
be careful — a woman who plays with a heart, 
like mine. By God, sir — ” he raised his head 


238 


MAINWARINGr 


and his voice rose with it — ‘ * if I Ve taught your 
Parliament to believe in me, am I to be scorned 
by a piece of rosy flesh ?” 

< 6 Shut up, man, for heaven ’s sake,” I said. 
“They are looking at you.” 

He growled. “Let them look. They shall 
look longer yet.” His beard sank to his shirt- 
front. He was very drunk. 

The Prime Minister rose, and Lord Miln- 
thorpe, who was acting host for his father, rose 
too, not without a sacred eye for Main waring. 
“Drunk, eh?” he said to me as he passed. 
“Will you look after him?” I nodded. They 
all went up. I got Mainwaring some soda- 
water. He asked for brandy in it, and I gave 
it him. He mixed it stiff, and tossed it down. 
It seemed to revive him. 

“Tell Molly I’m going,” he said. “I’ll wait 
here.” 

“I’m damned if I will,” I said. He lifted 
his head in astonishment, and stared at me. Up 
he got, steady as a rock, put his head down, 
tossed it up, and left the room. Straight as a 
die. He went upstairs; for I heard him, and 
into the great gallery; for I heard the door 
slam behind him. For myself, I was sick to 
death of him, of them, of life itself. I went out 


CUPS 


239 


into the hall, got my coat and hat, and escaped. 

For a moment, under the stair, I stopped. I 
had a horror of what he would be at with that 
unhappy child. But whatever it was, could I 
have done anything to prevent it? I knew I 
could do nothing. 



XIX 


CLIMAX 

T HE very next afternoon this remarkable 
man rose in a crowded House to make a 
“personal” explanation. I didn’t hear him — 
had had no idea it was to be so soon — but it 
certainly read uncommonly well. He had in a 
high degree the power of lucent, unadorned ex- 
pression. Boaster as he was, and blackguard 
as he was, he never boasted in the House, and 
without cant he was able to conceal his black- 
guardry. His humour, which was biting and 
bitter too — that is, left an acrid after-taste — 
never spared himself. He was pleased to make 
merry over his exploits in Trafalgar Square; 
but for him, he said, the police might not have 
been able to get their helmets on again, “for a 
dog when it is angry goes for the head.” Just 
so, without excusing himself or seeking to avoid 
reproach, he was able to explain all his barri- 
cade performances. That great meeting on the 
Embankment, for instance, when he went down 
to the House at the head of a howling horde 

240 


CLIMAX 


241 


some thousands strong — he had led them at the 
double to the very gates of Palace Yard, and 
then switched them off into Westminster, and 
“to God knew where, but he himself did not.” 
As he put it, he had invariable saved the Queen’s 
peace ; and yet he was able, while demonstrating 
that, to make it perfectly clear that, in his opin- 
ion the hordes and mobs of hungry, ill-washed 
men had griefs of their own, with which he, 
Mainwaring, was in sympathy. On Culgaith 
he must have been most moving, for I believe — 
however he started the thing — he had been true 
of heart afterwards, from what I saw of him 
there; and it is very certain that he did keep 
the colliers there within bounds, and did obtain 
them, by his own power, their just demands. 
So did he deal with the recent affair at Jar- 
row, making it appear (which may have been 
true) that the trouble was on the point of settle- 
ment when it was upset by “the blundering in- 
tromission of a self-seeking knave.” Then he 
turned to the “self-seeking knave” and hit 
out straight from the shoulder. He let him- 
self go about “the ways of new Journalism as 
expounded by a practitioner of repute.” He 
repeated the conversation between principal and 
agent on that evening in Cadogan Gardens, and 


242 


MAINWARING 


then he said, “Sir, in the present state of the 
public appetite it becomes the House, as I con- 
ceive, to uphold the sanitary laws. A public 
fed upon lies will be a lying public ; a publican 
w T ho feeds them on lies for his own vile purposes 
should not be suffered to exist. It matters 
little whether I or another stand in his way, 
whether I or another go souse into the mud he 
has fouled for us. But it matters very greatly 
how the people are fed; and it matters very 
greatly how the Government of this country and 
the Parliament whose servant it is are repre- 
sented and reported abroad. Let nothing true 
be hid; let there be no screens. We are not 
here to masquerade as patriots. But let no dis- 
torting glasses be used, which may swell me 
out to a bladder of fraud, or attenuate another 
to a crooked stick of iniquity. Let us be honest 
in our dealings with them we are hired to 
serve. ’ ’ And so on. He ended by thanking the 
House for hearing him in justification of him- 
self. He was warmly cheered when he sat 
down. “Loud cheers ,’ 7 my paper said. 

The Prime Minister followed him at some 
length. He was always to long for me; his 
principle of oratory was, never use one word 
where three will do; and if he had another it 


CLIMAX 


243 


was — take a notion, and divide it into three 
heads. All this he did, tediously, but with the 
noble sincerity which was a part of his character 
and made William Hardman a great man. 
Long as he was, there was no doubt but he took 
a serious view of the case. He proposed that 
the printer and publisher should be called up 
to the bar of the House to be reprimanded by 
Mr. Speaker; and it would appear that the 
House was of his mind. But it was necessary 
that the leader of the Opposition should put in 
his word — and so he did. 

“Mr. Bbntivoglio deprecated the proposal. 
He thought that the honourable gentleman’s 
honour had been sufficiently vindicated by the 
apology, his reputation adequately established 
by the exemplary damages awarded. He must 
say that he did not consider the House to be 
the proper place for the recriminations of rival 
pleaders, or the exultation of the successful over 
his fallen adversary. Such exultations might 
suit a farmyard, but not the Senate. Although 
he did not defend the intransigeance of the pub- 
lic Press, he could not approve any more of the 
interference of the Administration in private 
trade disputes. It was said that Government 
works were endangered, but was not that a mat- 


244 


MAIN WARING 


ter for his honourable friend at the Board of 
Trade? And was it a healthy precedent to 
select a private member of the calibre of the 
honourable member for Skilaw to treat with pro- 
fessional agitators not so fortunately seated? 

“Mr. Mainwaring begged pardon. But did 
the right honourable gentleman assert that he 
was a professional agitator? 

“Mr. Bentivoglio withdrew the expression 
‘professional/ Whether the hon. gentleman 
was an agitator or not was a matter of judg- 
ment. It depended upon what an agitator 
was. To his mind he was free to confess, an 
agitator was one who agitated other people. 

“Mr. Mainwaring. As the right honourable 
gentleman is now doing. (Mr. Bentivoglio 
made no reply.) 99 

He would not. I can see him now, sitting 
with his arms folded, his weary eyes closed 
down. 

Nevertheless the Prime Minister carried the 
House with him. Sir John Cope stake and his 
printers attended with the Sergeant-at-Arms, 
and with lowered heads received a wigging from 
the Speaker in his most shocked and solemn 
manner. That followed in due course ; and so, I 
may say in advance, followed in a more leisurely 


CLIMAX 


245 


manner the translation of Mr. Constantine Jess 
to the House of Lords, and the presidency of the 
Board of Trade to Mr. B. D. B. Mainwaring. 
But Richard Damn-to-Blazes was not there yet, 
and was not there long. My record now 
hastens to its climax. 


XX 


CRY FROM CAVENDISH SQUARE 

I THINK it came in January; I know it was 
after Christmas, which I had spent at Wes- 
ton with my sister. I had seen nothing of 
Mainwaring, and heard little except rumours 
that he was going to be taken into the Cabinet ; 
I had seen nothing of his exalted acquaintance, 
who of course were away from London. 
Lizzy still wrote for books. She was tackling 
Shakespeare, by her own request. From her 
I got very little. “Mr. M. had been away all 
this week at a Conference, or something, at 
Leeds.’ ’ That was the kind of thing. Or 
“The Duchess and Lady Mary were here to 
dinner. I hated it. ’ ’ I remember that, and re- 
member wondering how she could stand it. 
But I think she was too proud to tell me any- 
thing definite. I don’t believe she could have 
brought herself to write the words down which 
would say what she really thought was going 
on. Imagine that decent, reticent, law-abiding 
girl face to face, behind his chair, with Mary 

246 


CRY FROM CAVENDISH SQUARE 247 

Pointsett’s talent o unabashedly displayed, and 
Mainwaring’s flagrant indifference to surround- 
ings, and the shallow bonhomie of the royster- 
ing Duchess of Leven! Imagine her judgment 
of the display, her scorn of the women in it, her 
resentment for the man who had dragged her 
into such a world. Then, after the House had 
risen, “M. has gone to stay at Bigbury, the 
Duke’s place. This house is very quiet. It 
suits me. ’ ’ 

I received that at Weston, and just about then 
I heard — my sister read it out of a letter she 
had — that the Whitehavens were staying with 
another Duke — him of Kendal, who was Lord 
Gerald’s brother. Agatha asked me if I knew 
them. I said I had met Gerald Gorges, and 
thought him too good-looking to live, and too 
stupid not to. She asked me what I meant, and 
I said, 4 4 Oh, too stupid to know that he ought to 
be killed.” My brother-in-law said that that 
sounded rather a profane remark, and Agatha 
added, 44 I suppose you mean that he’s always 
about with her. I thought he was going to 
marry Mary ; but it can ’t be that, because she ’s 
not there.” Then I was sure she was at Big- 
bury, and that the Duchess still hankered after 
the comic. Well, that’s all that I knew until 


248 


MAIN W ARIN G 


I went back to town ; and then, ont of the blue, 
I had a note from Lady Whitehaven, delivered 
by hand. “My dear Mr. Whiteworth, I’m in 
town and quite alone. Do come to see me. I 
am in horrible perplexity and don’t know how 
to act for the best. The sooner the better, as I 
am flying off again as soon as I can. May it 
be tomorrow? About five? We shall not be 
disturbed. Yours most distractedly, E. W.” 
I sent an answer back by the groom who was 
waiting, that I would not fail. Of course I 
knew what she wanted me to do, and equally 
certainly that I neither could nor would do any- 
thing at all. Let Gerald Gorges work for what 
Gerald Gorges wanted. I must say that, then, 
I had no kind of sympathy for this netted 
Aphrodite. 

Howpver, whatever I may be made of, it is 
not imperishable bronze, and I was sorry for 
her when I saw her. I was expected, for an 
elderly woman in a black lace cap opened the 
door to me before the bell had ceased to peal, 
and taking my coat from me, asked me to fol- 
low her. We went upstairs — the house had a 
swathed appearance — and I was ushered into a 
little pale-blue room with pink china about, and 
a pastel of the Duchess, and there found my 


CRY FROM CAVENDISH SQUARE 249 

lady with feverishly bright eyes, looking other- 
wise rather pinched. The tea was there, and 
she poured it out at once. “You see I counted 
on your punctuality, ’ 9 she said. She was posi- 
tively shy; I suppose in view of what she had 
to tell me. 

But we did not get at it at once. She talked 
of indifferent things — her family, my family, 
Christmas in the country and all the rest of it, 
in a way which those people have, and will have, 
I don 9 t doubt, on the Last Day, when the trum- 
pet shall have sounded, and they are waiting for 
their turn at the Assize. Did not the noblesse 
pay their compliments and crack their little 
jokes in the tumbril? I was never good at that 
kind of thing — but I did my best — but, by some 
ridiculous fate, whatever I said was bound to 
bring us up sharp at Main waring or his wife. 
I remember that my temples beaded with the 
work. 

At last she saw it, and really laughed. 
“There seems no escape from him! But you 
know, of course, that I could only want to talk 
to you about that. ’ ’ 

“Well,” I said, “I thought it possible — ” 

“You see, I knew you were a friend of his — 
I suppose his oldest friend up here.” 


250 


MAINWAEINGr 


“Anywhere, I should think. I don’t think he 
is a man who can count his friends as an asset.” 

She sighed. “No, no. He is not like that. 
He doesn’t want friends: he wants subjects, 
creatures! That was my dreadfully unfortu- 
nate mistake.” 

“I am sure it was a generous mistake.” She 
gave me a dewy glance. “How kind of you! 
And I think I may accept it. I do indeed. Of 
course — I admit it fully — I have been very 
foolish — ” 

“Your first act to him was one of kindness. 
He was in prison, wasn’t he!” 

i ‘ He was just out. I had written to him when 
he was in prison, but he had not answered. 
Then I met him at Lady Mainprise ’s — at 
luncheon. It was pitiful to see. He ate like a 
wolf — but his eyes! I assure you I dreamed 
about them. . . . They seemed to go through 
one. Like swords.” She shut her own for a 
moment — then, blushing like a girl, she said to 
me, “You know I am afraid of him. He can 
do what he likes when he looks at me. ’ ’ 

I guessed that. — It seemed to me it would 
do good if I used her confession as a text. 

“I’m afraid he’s pretty bad, you know. Re- 
member that I know him well. He is strong, 


CRY FROM CAVENDISH SQUARE 251 

and without any sort of conscience. I daresay 
that he bewitched you at first. I only hope you 
will be careful he doesn’t bewitch Lady Mary.” 

She hadn’t expected that at all, and even 
now she was so full of her own troubles that 
it had no effect upon her. She opened her eyes 
wide. 

‘ ‘ Molly ! ’ ’ she said. 1 ‘ Oh, dear no, there ’s no 
trouble there. She is romantic, of course, high- 
flown and school-girlish. But he doesn’t think 
about her. He only talks to her because he 
thinks that if he does he can come here. She is 
often at my sister’s, and he brings her home. 
Then of course he has to come in. But I 
couldn’t very well keep Molly away. My sis- 
ter would want to have explanations. There 
would be a fuss. And there is fuss enough as 
it is.” She broke off abruptly and then said 
rather wildly, “Mr. Whitworth, it can’t go on. 
It is making me ill. He pursues me- everywhere 
— makes scenes — expects outrageous things. 
My friends notice it — how can they help it? I 
don’t know what I am to do — I might go abroad 
— but that would be very difficult just now. 
And — oh, no, I couldn’t go abroad just yet. I 
have had to tell the servants that I’m never at 
home to h im — and of course they know. I 


252 


MAINWARING 


Hardly dare go out at all. He goes everywhere 
— wherever I am. He finds out — if he doesn’t 
know the house, he waits outside — and follows 
me. It is a persecution. And my friends — one 
in particular — a dear friend of mine — ” 

I thought I would risk it. “Lord Gerald?” I 
asked. She blushed again strongly, and looked 
down. She hung her head like a girl. “Yes, I 
mean Lord Gerald. He has begged me not to 
have anything more to do with him. He has in- 
sisted — ” 

I said, “Couldn’t Lord Gerald carry your 
wishes to Mainwaring?” 

She stared at me, but then recovered herself. 
“I don’t think he could very well. You see, 
they have never spoken. They disliked each 
other at first sight.” 

I wasn’t at all surprised, but it seemed to me 
proper to insist. 

“That I understand,” I said. “But they 
have been introduced, of course — they met on 
your yacht, I think? In any case, it is hardly 
a matter for much ceremony, surely. One 
thing is certain. If their positions were re- 
versed I am positive that Mainwaring would 
speak to him, sans fagon.” 

I suppose I ought not to have said it. I did 


CRY FROM CAVENDISH SQUARE 253 

not realize at the moment what was unhappily 
the case that, just as Mainwaring desired the 
favours of this lady, so did she desire those of 
Gerald Gorges. He was in a strong position 
therefore. 

She showed her sense of that, poor woman. I 
felt very sorry for her. She bit her lower lip, 
and then said rather shortly, but finally : 

“Gerald declines to interfere.” 

After that she broke down altogether, let her 
tears brim and fall, and became what she had 
never allowed herself to be in my company, a 
woman rather than a countess. She told me 
what had happened before Christmas — what 
had determined her to invoke my help — “If I 
had not gone away the next day I don’t think I 
could have held my head up again.” 

It had been at a party — a large one — I forget 
where she said it was. There was dancing — 
“Thank God the chicks weren’t there. I had 
sent them off the day before” — dancing going 
on in one room, and a crowd of people at the 
door leading to the next. In that other room 
were the dowagers. There were card-tables in 
there. She w T as in the dancing-room, had been 
dancing indeed, and was standing at the further 
end from the staircase, with her partner, when 


254 


MAIN WARING 


she saw Mainwaring come in and look about 
him. “He is so tall, you can see him directly. 
Oh, he looked perfectly dreadful. Pm afraid — 
in fact, I know — he had been — you know he does. 
He was deadly white, and you couldn’t see his 
eyes at all — only dark hollows where they 
ought to have been. He stood there gnawing 
his lip — I saw his beard working about. Some 
one spoke to him — but he took no notice. He 
kept looking about, working his chin. I was 
shaking — I couldn’t help it — and Jemmy Laxby 
saw me, and asked me what was the matter. 
And then he saw me. He put his head down, 
as if some one had hit him, and then threw it 
up with a jerk, and came straight through the 
dancers, as if he was wading through them — as 
if they were a river in flood. I was cloven to 
my place. He came straight to me — stood over 
me — and I saw his eyes shining. He said, ‘ I 
must speak to you at once.’ I said, ‘Well, it 
can’t be here,’ and left Jemmy where he was. — 
There was no time to think of him or anybody. 
I went into the room where all the dowagers 
were — I knew them all, of course. He followed 
me, and there — in the middle of them — under 
the chandelier — he poured out the most extra- 
ordinary things — How he had loved me madly, 


CRY FROM CAVENDISH SQUARE 255 

how he had worked for my sake — how cruel I 
was — What had he done to offend me ? He said 
he would go on his knees, there, then — if I would 
speak one word to him. He said he was dying 
— that he had had a hemorrhage that morning — 
he looked ghastly — oh, dreadful — Well, I don’t 
know what I said, or what saved me — but I saw 
dear old Lady Heroncourt, and went to her. I 
took her hand, and sat by her. She made room 
on her stool. Of course everybody had heard 
everything — but they went on as if nothing out 
of the way had occurred. He was still under 
the chandelier, looking at me — muttering to 
himself. Then, thank God, my husband came 
in, and took me away. I was nearly dead of 
it. ’ 9 She was nearly dead with the recollection 
of it, poor soul ; sank back, shut her eyes, rested 
her cheek against the chair, and put up her 
feet. I didn’t know whether she was going to 
faint or to sleep. She looked very pretty there 
— ten years younger than she could have been, 
and as relaxed and innocent as a tired girl. 
I didn’t say anything — what was there to say? 
— and I believed she really went to sleep for a 
few minutes. 

Then she opened her eyes — I could only see 
one of them — saw me sideways, and sat up. 


256 


MAINWARINGr 


“I’m so sorry. I am awfully tired. But you 
know why I wanted to see you now — don’t 
you?” 

I said that I did. I said that I would see 
Mainwaring as soon as he came back. Did she 
know when that would be? He was at Bigbury, 
I believed. 

She said — her voice was worn now and old — 
“Yes, he is with my sister. He writes to me 
every day nearly. I never answer — but he al- 
ways writes. He says that he shall come back 
as soon as I do.” 

“Really,” I said, “I do think your best plan 
will be not to come back.” 

She said, “But I must. I can’t keep Molly 
in the country for long. And the House meets 
in February — and Jack always likes to be up 
for that. He goes, you know.” 

Then I had another scheme. “It might be 
worked through Lizzy. I don’t mean to put it 
all on to her. You have asked me to help — and 
I’ll do what I can. It won’t amount to much, 
you know. He’s a great man, now, and I am 
a nobody. He’ll simply scorn me. But still — 
I’ll have a shot. But if Lizzy could be brought 
in — ” 

She thought of that. “How could one bring 


CRY FROM CAVENDISH SQUARE 257 

her in? She’s a dear girl, and I’m very fond 
of her — but I don’t know that I could quite — ” 
“She has a great heart, that girl,” I said. 
“I am sure that if she were sorry for you — ” 
Poor Lady Whitehaven smiled — a wry and 
rueful smile it was. “I’m afraid she would 
more probably be angry — don’t you think?” 

I didn’t think so. I didn’t think Lizzy was 
a jealous woman. But I daresay Lady White- 
haven knew what I felt for Lizzy. I said, “No, 
I don ’t agree with you. I think she would help 
you if you told her something of what you have 
told me. If I may say so, the more frank you 
are with Lzzy, the more warmly she’ll help. I 
don’t believe Main waring wants her to leave 
him, and I know that she has thought of it. Of 
course she sees what he is doing. She is natur- 
ally shrewd. She knows him through and 
through. Well, my idea is that if she told him 
that she should leave him — and she wouldn’t 
tell him so unless she meant it — it would have a 
great effect upon him.” 

She became very thoughtful over it, and fi- 
nally said that she would probably see Lizzy as 
soon as she came back. She thanked me very 
touchingly for being so kind, as she called it. 
If I had been kind, she had made me so. 


258 


MAINWARING 


Going out, I admit I was chilled somewhat in 
my ardour. Lord Gerald was on the doorstep 
as I went out into the frost. He looked at me 
full, without recognition, and went into the 
house without an enquiry. He, too, it seemed, 
was expected. It seemed to me rather a case. 
I wondered how she had known how long I 
should he. When I looked at my watch I had 
been there two hours. 


XXI 


SICK-BED 

W ELL, and then, just as we were conspir- 
ing to snuff him out, he fell ill. It was 
after the New Year’s List, which announced that 
Her Majesty had been pleased to confer a peer- 
age of the United Kingdom on, among others, 
the Eight Hon. Constantine Jess, M. P., Presi- 
dent of the Board of Trade: yes, it was when 
he was in full view of his promised land. 
Lizzy had a letter from the Duchess — no, a 
telegram first, addressed to “ Mathews, Montagu 
Square,” and then a letter, saying that the 
Duchess of Leven was uneasy about Mr. Main- 
waring, who was ill at Bigsbury Castle, and anx- 
ious that Elizabeth Mathews should come and 
attend him. Directions were given as to what 
E. Mathews was to do; and she was told that 
she would be met at the station. Lizzy wrote 
me this before she started, enclosing the letter. 
It seemed to me an insult prepared by her hus- 
band for his own ulterior purposes. My good 
girl didn’t take it so. But she noticed it. 

259 


260 


M AIN W ARIN G 


“You see, the Duchess thinks I am the parlour- 
maid. I am glad of that.” That was all she 
said. 

He had told me the truth, then, in his cups 
at the party. This was another hemorrhage, 
and a had one. He had caught a cold, skating, 
and neglected it. Then one night he began to 
cough, and the horrible thing occurred in the 
Bigsbury billiard-room. They carried him up 
and sent for the doctor. Afterwards they had 
another down from Harley Street. He wasn’t 
fit to move for three weeks; high fever, and 
bleeding at the lungs pretty often. 

Lizzy kept me informed. “You will find him 
changed. He will hardly let me out of his sight. 
We have a night-nurse, and they are all very 
kind to him. Lady Mary has been sent away 
to her people. She bothered him, so he asked 
the doctor to get rid of her. She was very much 
upset. He made me write to Lady W. — but she 
won’t come here. If he is no worse I shall 
bring him home. He seems to wish it. He has 
had a letter from Mr. Hardman.” 

In another letter she prepared me. “You 
will be surprised when you see him. He has 
asked for you several times. He seems to cling 
to me. It is as if he was trying to make it 


SICK-BED 


261 


better for me. He will hardly let me leave him 
for a minute. It is painful to see a man who 
was always so independent so different now. 
It is too late. But I must do what I can for 
him. ’ ’ 

That made me rather unhappy. I had never 
felt so before about her relations with him. 
There had been no occasion. But if he had a 
sick man’s craving, or if he thought to atone 
for past neglect by extravagant demonstra- 
tions ; and if I was to be. there, and he as care- 
less of presences or absences as he generally 
was — why, I saw that I was to be passed 
through the fire. However, what she could do, 
I could do, I hoped. 

The talk in London was that he would be de- 
clared President of the Board of Trade before 
Parliament met. Then he must be re-elected, 
of course. But — it was objected — was he going 
to die? Never mind what he does, the answer 
ran; old Hardman wants him; or at any rate 
the name of him. He wants what Mainwaring 
stands for. He is getting nervous that the 
Liberals may lose touch with the trade unions — 
as they may — or that Bentivoglio will get hold 
of them — as he would if he could. Besides, his 
back is up. The Messenger did that. One 


262 


MAIN WARIN Gr 


knew that the old man had the deuce of a temper. 
He thought that there had been a conspiracy 
against the House of Commons, and that Main- 
waring had exposed it. Well, I think he had. 
That is how things stood in January. Main- 
waring was brought home in February. The 
Houses met, and the appointment was gazetted. 

Lizzy wrote to me to come. I had not seen 
her for four months. I was very much agitated, 
much more than she was. But she had a world 
on her young shoulders. She was twenty-six 
that year, and had been married six of them. 
She looked very pale, of a grave, still, sad 
beauty. She was in plain black. 

I kissed her hand, and held it for a moment. 
She took it away without effort or apparent 
will. I don’t think she noticed that I had had 
it in mine. “I am glad you could come. He 
heard the bell and asked if that was you. He 
sent me down on the chance.” 

“How is he?” I asked her. 

She said that he was better. He had had no 
hemorrhage for ten days. The doctors spoke 
of his going abroad in another fortnight. 

“You will go with him?” I had to ask. She 
showed me her sweet true eyes. 


SICK-BED 


263 


“Oh, yes, I should have to go with him. He 
wouldn’t think of going without me.” Then 
her eyes beckoned me. “I think we ought to 
go up now. He is very impatient.” 

I followed her, despair in my heart. 

He looked like a wandering spirit, paused in 
its drifting, to rest in that bed. A huge four- 
poster with red hangings it was. His hands 
were like claws. You could see his skull 
through the skin. There was something about 
the eyes which shocked me. Not that the fire 
had gone out. It was there. But it had gone 
cold. There was no arrogance there now, nor 
conscious power; no devilry, nor mockery, nor 
malice. But there was mischief. I could see 
it — and he made me feel it. 

“Well, you see me lying where my enemies 
would like to see me ! But I shall be even with 
them yet. If it hadn’t been for this dear girl 
I should have been a dead man, I can tell you. ’ ’ 
He looked at her, and she very unwillingly, as 
it seemed to me, met his eyes. “Come to me, 
my darling , 7 7 he said, and slowly she went to the 
bed. He took her hand. 4 ‘ My true love has my 
heart, and I have hers.” I could hardly hear 
to see him — though he meant it all for me. His 
great gaunt eyes made free of her. “Kiss me, 


264 


MAINWARING 


Lizzy, kiss me, my darling.’ ’ She stooped her 
head, and his lips fastened upon hers. I turned 
my back upon them, went to the window and 
stood looking upon the square, starving and 
sodden in the fog. 

I don’t know how long it went on. It seemed 
to me ages. Then I heard her sob, and say, 
“Oh, don’t, don’t. I can’t. I hate it.” She 
broke away, and came to me. She spoke in a 
remote way — with a dry rasp in her clear voice. 
“Please sit by him for a little. I shall be back 
soon.” Then she went out of the room, and I 
turned very reluctantly to the bed. 

“You see, my dear fellow, that I am in clover 
here. Bless your life, I knew what I was about 
when I fell in love with her. I haven’t behaved 
well, I know. I daresay you understand how I 
have been placed — one can’t always help oneself. 
But thank God for her, I say. Now I am com- 
ing round again, there’s a new honeymoon to 
look forward to. The sooner the better.” 

He didn’t say all this in a rush — but rather 
jerked it out in spasms, as if he was squirting 
poison at me. I think he knew — I am sure he 
did — that it was poison to me. At the same 
time — and that made it worse — I felt sure that 
he wanted her again. I could not doubt but he 


SICK-BED 


265 


would give her another child, probably infected 
with his disease; and now I knew what this 
would mean to her. That knowledge made me 
hot ; then cold all over. He saw me shiver, and 
his eyes gleamed. He felt able to talk of some- 
thing else, so at ease he was; he even tried to 
be amiable, which he had never done in his life 
before. When Lizzy came back, beyond holding 
her hand, which he did throughout my stay, he 
did not attempt to make love to her again. 

He said that he should take her to Marseilles, 
“ where you and I first blundered into each 
other.’ ’ She should see where he mewed his 
youth; the pothouses where he ate his mess of 
fish from a basin, and drank black wine; the 
garret where he hugged himself against the cold, 
the room where he taught. She should know 
what she had saved him from — and then, he 
said with shining eyes, she should go to the 
best hotel in the town, and see where they were 
now. He pulled at her hand and asked her how 
that would be. She said, “You know I don’t 
care for grand hotels.” 

A maid came to the door and said that Lady 
Whitehaven had called to enquire. That 
seemed to me almost incredible — hut not so to 
Mainwaring. “Go down, my love,” he said. 


266 


MAINWARINGr 


4 ‘You can bring her up. She’s an old friend.” 
Lizzy went without a word. “An old friend,” 
he repeated, for his own benefit, not (I am 
sure) to justify himself. 

He awaited her with impatience, and when 
she came in, greeted her gaily, even with an air 
of mockery. “So you have come — you wish 
to be reassured. It is all right. They have cut 
my claws.” I made way for her. She looked 
very fluttered, but with her usual gallantry car- 
ried it off. 

“We have all been very anxious — of course 
you know that. Now you are better you must 
expect all Leven House about your bed. Really, 
I have hardly been able to keep Molly in the 
house . 9 7 

He paid no heed to what she said. “So they 
have not put out my eyes. They can still call ? 9 7 

She nodded. “I am sure they are very cap- 
able. But where has Lizzy gone? I thought 
she followed me in.” 

He was looking at her, triumphantly. When 
she mentioned Lizzy he became easy. “She 
wouldn’t come here while you were here.” 

Lady Whitehaven jumped up. “Oh, but that 
won’t do at all. I shall leave you immediately. 
I never heard of such a thing. ’ ’ 


SICK-BED 267 

He said, “Sit down. Whitworth shall fetch 
her.” She turned to me. 

“Do, please, Mr. Whitworth.” 

So I went for Lizzy, and found her down- 
stairs, preparing a tea-tray. She knew my 
step, I think, waited for me, and when I came 
in, looked quickly and shyly at me, then faintly 
smiled. “I am sent for you,” I said. “Will 
you come up?” “In a minute,” she said. “I 
am going to take her some tea. ’ 7 

She added, seeing that I said nothing — I could 
not — “I am making some for you too;” and 
then I said, “No, no, I shan’t go up any more.” 
She busied herself with the bread-and-butter. 
“It is better for me when some one is there — but 
I understand, of course.” 

I was very much upset, could not speak to 
her. She knew it and was distressed by it, but 
could not bear to let me go. It was one of those 
cases where torment, being lively, is better than 
despair, which means spiritual death. 

“How long has he been like this?” 

* 1 1 found him so when I went up there. It has 
been the same ever since.” 

“Lizzy, how ghastly!” 

She gave a dry sob. “Oh, don’t!” 

It made no difference — I didn’t really care 


268 


MAIN WAKING 


one way or the other ; but I asked, Had he sent 
for Lady Whitehaven? Oh, ho, I was told. 
She just came. She had called every day, but 
this was the first time she had sent her name 
up. 

I said, “The woman is a fool,” but poor 
Lizzy shook her head. 

“No, she’s not a fool. She can’t help her- 
self.” Then, having washed her hands and 
dried them, she said, “I must take this up.” 

“I’ll carry it to the door for you,” I told her. 
Then I said, “Do you want me to come again?” 
Her eyes showed that she did — a sudden dila- 
tion, a gleam. “If you would — if you could — 
It is something for me. ” She told me then that 
he would be sure to want me — “Not because he 
likes you — it is horrid — it is to let you see.” 
She was moved by the horror of it all. She 
touched me on the arm. “Don’t mind for me — 
don’t be angry — ” “Oh, Lizzy!” I would 
have kissed her — but she avoided me. I carried 
up her tray, and at the door she said, without 
looking at me, “Then you will come again?” 

*“Yes, yes, and I’ll work for you next time.” 
She gave me a grateful look and went in. I 
saw Lady Whitehaven move suddenly as the 
door opened. 


XXII 


HBAD DOWN 

M AINWARING got better, and as he got 
better so his yoke grew lighter. People 
came to see him ; he used to have a party to tea 
in his room every afternoon. The Duchess, of 
course, Lady Mary and others of their set who 
don’t count. With their advent Lizzy declined 
to the servant again. None of them had any 
idea of what she really was, though the Duchess 
had remarked her. ‘ ‘ That really lovely gel — 
what’s her name? If I were my sis I should 
be consumed with jealousy.” Her “sis,” as 
she called her, naturally was not; but Lady 
Mary used to watch Lizzy about. 

Lizzy herself was happier, poor dear. “Oh, 
it’s much better now they’ve come,” she told 
me. “He is only troublesome now when you 
are here. He likes to make people uncomfort- 
able.” There was no difficulty about that. 

There was talk of his going to Algiers; the 
Zenobia was mentioned, and Lady Whitehaven, 
much lighter of heart since Gerald Gorges had 

269 


270 


MAINWARING 


gone back to his embassy, thought that she 
might go too, and take Mary. Would I go? she 
asked me, supposing it could all be arranged. 
I refused. Then she became sublime in her un- 
conscious insolence. 4 ‘Lizzy is the difficulty, of 
course. One really doesn’t quite know what to 
do about her. She has been devoted — but you 
know how obstinate she can be. ” I don ’t think 
it occurred to her for a moment that the plain 
way out of the impasse would have been to let 
the unfortunate couple go alone. 

I said, “Lizzy will go if he wants her. She 
has her ideas of duty. You can’t expect her to 
like it. The question she will ask will be, what 
does he like?” 

“There would be my maid, of course — ” she 
said musingly. “It might do.” I had to leave 
it there. It is no use being rude to people who 
simply don’t understand why you should be 
rude. 

Then the thing was settled, from elsewhere. 
The lady began to be doubtful, to see difficulties, 
to make them. I heard some of her talks, and 
his glum replies. He was suspicious from the 
first. Then she said that it was impossible for 
her to go, but that the yacht was at his disposal 


HEAD DOWN 


271 


for as long as he chose. He waved the yacht 
away as out of the question altogether. Either 
he had lost virtue in his late tussle with death, 
or he foresaw some metal more attractive — he 
seemed to lose interest in her. She noticed it, 
and being all nerves and feelers made efforts 
to re-establish herself. Finally, he made her see 
that he didn’t want her there any more, and 
she ceased to come. 

She had had her directions from Madrid, that 
was clear. Gorges had put his foot down. “If 
you would have me — choose.” Here was a 
situation for a woman who had had the best 
of two worlds all her life. 

She ceased to come to Montagu Square, but 
sent for me, and soothed herself that way. She 
talked round and round the matter, evidently 
sore with Main waring that he didn’t feel it 
more, equally hurt with Gorges that he felt it 
so much. Not at all in love with Main waring, 
but unwilling to lose him; very much in love 
with Gorges but unable to move him. To me 
very tiresome. However, I am sorry for her as 
things turned out. She was at the end of her 
tether now. 1 

The first thing that broke her up was her 


272 


MAIN WARING 


daughter’s judgment, clear, just and pitiless. 
Lizzy told me what had happened. Mary Point- 
sett had gone there and almost forced her way 
up. She had come in suddenly and stretched 
out her hands to him. “ Mother tried to keep 
me away, but I couldn’t — I couldn’t.” Main- 
waring was on the sofa, in his dressing-gown. 
He looked at her, Lizzy said, with glittering 
eyes. He showed his teeth. He had jerked his 
head sideways towards Lizzy, who was stand- 
ing by the table. “I don’t think you know my 
wife. Lizzy, my darling, this is Lady Mary 
Pointsett.” 

She said the girl went all white. Then she 
shivered and got up. “She shook hands with 
me like a sleepwalker, and turned and went out 
of the room. I went after her. She had hold 
of the banister and was standing there, just 
swaying a little. I said, ‘Lady Mary, it’s not 
my fault,’ and she turned. ‘You look kind,’ 
she said; ‘don’t be angry with me.’ I said, 
‘My dear, how could I be?’ We came together 
somehow and cried. I took her downstairs and 
gave her something to drink. She was shaking. 
Then I called a cab for her and she went home.” 

I don’t know — I never knew — what happened 
between her mother and her. I understood that 


HEAD DOWN 


273 


she went into the country. She married a year 
or two afterwards, and has a family of chil- 
dren now. A man many years older than her- 
self. 

As the time approached when he was to take 
her away Lizzy became very depressed. She 
told me that she didn’t know what had happened 
to him. “He seems to care for nothing now ex- 
cept getting away. He doesn’t talk, doesn’t 
care for me to read to him. Lies there looking 
up and smiling to himself. Sometimes I think 
his mind is going. I am afraid of him. You 
see, I know him very well. I’m sure he is going 
to do something. I can see it in his mind, but 
not what it is. ’ r 

I offered to go with him, but she wouldn’t 
hear to that. “No, no, I must be the one. If 
he were ill again and anything happened to 
him I should never forgive myself.” 

I said, “Let me ask him, anyhow. Let me 
see what he says. My darling girl! Let me 
do something for you. It is all I live for.” 

She put her hand on my arm. “You do 
everything for me. Everything that can be 
done. You ’ll come to me if I wire, won ’t you ? ’ ’ 
I thought she said that out of kindness, to com- 
fort me. 


274 


MAIN WARING 


“I’ll come to you across the world, Lizzy. 
You know that.” 

“Yes,” she said. “I know that.” Then I 
saw that she had asked me in order to comfort 
herself. 

I asked her if he was going to Marseilles. 
She supposed so, understood so. “He doesn’t 
care to talk about what we are going to do. 
He has taken tickets to Paris. That’s all I 
know. ’ ’ 

I tried to cheer her up. “You’ll like Paris — 
and you ’ll love Marseilles. I think the harbour 
at Marseilles one of the most exciting places in 
the world. How I should love to show you all 
that.” 

She took a deep breath. “Ah, that would 
be different! I wonder why some people find 
happiness and others — ! I used to be happy 
when I was a girl.” 

“A girl, my dear one! What do you call 
yourself now?” 

She shook her head. “That’s all done with. 
That goes when you have a baby. But my baby 
was born dead. So I have had no chance.” 
She hadn’t. It was true. 

I suggested to Mainwaring that I might be 
useful to him abroad. “Lizzy’s very tired, you 


HEAD DOWN 275 

know. Yon and I have been at Marseilles be- 
fore. ” 

“ Lizzy’s tired,” he said, agreeing with me. 
“It will do her good. No, no. We’ll see it out 
together. We Ve been through some things. It 
has been a good game. It is understood, my 
dear man, that you 11 come out if anything un- 
foreseen should happen.” 

‘ ‘Yes,” I said; “that is quite understood.” 

“I might overdo it, you know. It is a way 
I have.” He seemed to be talking to himself. 
“Yes, I overdo it. But I’ve always done what 
I wanted, since I got my lift into the air. I 
felt my wings — I have made a flight or two. 
And God knows where I should have stopped if 
it had not been for — ’ ’ He had a spasm of pain, 
which ran across his face and down the muscles 
of his neck. “Whitworth,” he said, looking 
deeply at me, “in ten years I might have been 
Prime Minister of this place.” 

“In ten years you may be.” 

His eyes grew sombre. “Not now. I take 
another line. I’m done with politics. They 
will bring me in again for Culgaith. No oppo- 
sition there now. I shall be a Privy Counsellor 
— a Right Honourable — and there I stop be- 
cause a pretty woman chooses it so.” He 


276 


MAINWAKING 


laughed — a hollow, cheerless sound. I thought 
of hyenas in the night. “But I call the halt,” 
he added. He would say no more. 

I saw Lizzy the night before they left — a 
wild March night, blowing a gale of wind from 
the south-west. “You’ll be dreadfully sick, my 
love, ’ ’ I said to her. She was much too uneasy 
to mind that. She clung to me. “You’ll come 
— you’ll come — I know you will.” 

“Oh, my love — ” She withdrew from me a 
little way. Something moved me to say that 
we should not be long separated. I seemed to 
see doom on the face of the man in the next 
room. But I didn’t say it. She looked at me, 
earnestly. “I ought not — I know — but you are 
all I have.” 

“I am yours for ever, Lizzy. That’s an old 
tale.” Then she left me, and I went into 
Main waring ’s library. He showed me a letter 
from old Hardman. Polite, formal, old-fash- 
ioned. “I have Her Majesty’s commands to 
offer you the Presidency of the Board of Trade, 
with a seat in the Cabinet . . . the interests of 
the working-classes which I know you have at 
heart . . . important modifications of the con- 
ditions under which . . . housing . . . hours of 
labour ...” etc. He looked it all over as if it 


HEAD DOWN 


277 . 


was a relic of the remote past, which to him in- 
deed it was. “I’ve been civil to him,” he said. 
‘ ‘ That ’s done with. ’ ’ Then he said, “ I Ve made 
a will. I put yon in as executor. You’ll act?” 

“Certainly,” I said. “I’ll act when the 
time comes.” 

“I know that Lizzy will be safe in your 
charge. Lizzy is a girl of gold. You know 
that. When I first saw her, scrubbing her 
mother’s doorstep, I give you my word, my 
heart stood still. A goddess in a print gown, 
with an apron of sack-cloth. Her beauty swept 
me off my feet — but she’s more than a beauty. 
She’s a good woman. And that’s why I put 
upon her more than beauty can bear. She can 
bear it.” 

I said, “You tempt me to tell you what I 
think of you. ’ ’ 

He said, ‘ ‘ I know it. If you dared you would 
have taken her away long ago. But you dared 
not, because she’s good. For that matter, my 
dear fellow, so are you.” 

“And what of you, Mainwaring? Good 
heavens, what are you?” 

He said, “I’ma very proud man. I cannot be 
denied.” It was impossible to argue with him. 

I saw them off from Victoria next morning. 


XXIII 


THE SPBING 

I HEARD from Lizzy, from Paris. Her 
letters were always inexpressive — on that 
account, to a lover, much more expressive than 
the most profuse could have been! — She had 
been grievously sick, crossing, but was quite re- 
covered. They were staying only one more 
night. He had taken her to a theatre. “I 
can’t say I liked it. I didn’t know what they 
said. It was more than enough for me what 
they did. He met some people he knew at the 
hotel, and I had to dine with them. One was a 
member of Parliament, and one was French. 
They all talked a great deal. People looked at 
us. I think the Frenchman is going to travel 
with us, but am not sure. Richard asked him. 
I don’t like him at all. It takes all sorts to 
make a world, but I have always lived in a 
small one. I suppose I am too old to change. 
Of course it’s all my fault. I’ll write again on 
the journey if I can — but don’t expect it. I 
have a great deal to do. L. ’ ’ 

278 


THE SPEING 


279 


I could see that she was miserable, uncomfort- 
able, “out of it.” The Frenchman would prob- 
ably think her fair game, and Mainwaring would 
not care. Jolly for me, all this. 

Nothing more for three days, and then I had 
a postcard which surprised me very much. 
“Madrid” it was headed, and “Hotel de la 
Paz.” She told me that they had only just 
arrived. “You see where we are. I couldn’t 
write before. Monsieur Lob joy came with us, 
but is not staying here. I will write as soon 
as I can. This is the coldest place I have ever 
been in, after sunset. I hope we shan’t be here 
long. It is very bad for him.” 

I don’t think I had a moment’s suspicion of 
what was going on, or I should, I am sure, have 
gone out at once. I thought he had had a sud- 
den impulse, and was making for Malaga or 
Cadiz. I thought Cadiz, as I knew what a good 
climate that was. Engrossed with my own af- 
fairs, I got what comfort I could from the ab- 
sence of the Frenchman from the hotel. For 
if that Frenchman was struck by Lizzy’s good 
looks he would think her fair quarry. He would 
see in two minutes that Mainwaring only found 
her a convenience. 

Two days after that I had a telegram saying, 


280 


MAINWARING 


! 'Please come at once . No signature. Then I 
began to put two and two together, and added to 
them all the chips and straws of suspicion and 
foreboding I had gathered in a week or more. 
I guessed that something horrible had happened, 
and that Lizzy was entangled in it. I thought 
of the Frenchman and had a cold sweat. 

I stuffed a bag, got some money, bought a 
ticket and left London that night. I had no 
time to see Lady Whitehaven — besides, she 
sickened me. I vowed as I rattled towards 
Southampton — that was the only way open to 
me — that I had done with such people for good. 
There is a kind of frivolity that is worse than 
mischievous — that is poisonous. There is a 
kind of insolence which may consist with easy 
manners and be the more cruel the more glitter- 
ing it is. The woman was probably now at the 
feet of her daughter. Let her get up a better 
one. And then I turned to wonder what had 
happened in Madrid. A hemorrhage — ? A 
fracas with G-erald Gorges? Probably both. 
If he took a Frenchman with him to Madrid, he 
had a reason. What was that? I thought it 
probable that Mainwaring had some preposter- 
ous notion of calling Gorges out. He would 
insult him — Gorges would meet him. The 


THE SPRING 


281 


Frenchman was the second. That was it. 
Well, and then? Would Gorges fight him? I 
thought he might have to. Would Gorges hit 
him? I could not believe it. Would Mainwar- 
ing fire at him? Main waring might do any- 
thing. And Lizzy, my bewildered goddess? 
Alone in Madrid, with a dead husband to bury — 
or a maniacal husband to endure. My heart 
bled for her. Southampton. 

It was a wild night, with a wet, soft south 
wind. No rain. I went downstairs, looked at 
my berth, and said No, to it. I walked the 
deck up and down, I sat betweenwhiles, smoked, 
walked again. I watched the dark, swift 
waters, the churned wake shining in the beam 
thrown on it by our stern light. I felt the 
soft wind to be full of whispers from Lizzy. It 
came upon me as mild as asking looks from her 
eyes. She used to look at me in a shy, grave 
way sometimes, asking if she had said some- 
thing foolish. She never did — but she was 
afraid I should judge her. Well, the world 
could still be endured while there were good 
women in it, because it was still possible that 
there might yet be some good men. Not Main- 
warings. God, what a man! Mad? No, I 
don’t think — I have never thought Mainwaring 


282 


M AIN W ARIN Gr 


was mad. He had genius, he was hag-ridden 
by it. It drove him to the accomplishment of 
his intent, whatever it was — Prime Minister of 
England, saviour of working-people, ruin of 
vCopestake, husband of Lizzy Mathews, master 
of Rose Whitehaven, death of her lover — what- 
ever it was, he must do it. The devil take him. 
Well, I was prepared to find that the devil had. 
What else could my poor girl mean? 

A faint lifting of the dark, a thrill, a paling 
of the stars, we had turned the clock. A world 
too much cursed with men was turning in her 
sleep. It grew colder; a little wind ruffled the 
sea, and the ship rose and dipped to meet the 
driven waves. I went downstairs and lay on 
my bed. Being tired, I slept heavily and woke 
at the shore noises. Le Havre. 

In Paris, as I had hoped, I just caught the 
Sud-Express, and was in Madrid next day. 
The intolerable journey! I drove to the hotel 
which is in that huge square, where the people 
move about like flies on a table. My knees 
shook and seemed to give under me. I asked 
the porter in the hall for Madame Mainwaring. 
The man’s face instantly changed. “Come 
with me, sir.” I followed him upstairs. 

Lizzy stood in the doorway like a ghost. She 


THE SPRING 


283 


faltered, ran forward, and clung to me. The 
floodgates were loosed, she abandoned herself, 
was carried away. I let her cry herself to 
quietness. She told me that he could not last 
long. The doctor was with him, had hardly 
left him. Hemorrhage, of course. ‘ ‘ The morn- 
ing after we came he went out with M. Lobjoy. 
He was out a long time. But he came back to 
lunch alone, and stayed with me till about four 
o’clock. We had some chocolate and he went 
out again, saying he might be late. M. Lobjoy 
came into my room and said there had been an 
accident. He had lost a great deal of blood. 
He was being brought back. . . . They brought 
him back in a litter. An Englishman whom I 
didn’t know came with him. He was very po- 
lite, and began by giving me his card. ‘Lord 
Gerald Gorges. ’ He said that he knew Richard. 
They took him up to bed. The doctor said from 
the first that it was hopeless. He is not bleed- 
ing now, but he can’t speak. One lung is quite 
gone, they say. Oh, my friend, my friend, I 
am so thankful you have come. 

“Lord Gerald has been very kind. He told 
Lobjoy to go away. I think he has gone back 
to France. I hope so. 

“It was through Lord Gerald that the people 


284 


MAIN WARING 


here are civil. They wanted me to take him 
away at onoe. They tried to prevent them 
bringing him in. The proprietor has been here 
— he was veiy angry. Lord Gerald saw him. 
It is all right now. 

“ I have no money. I don't know that Rich- 
ard has much. Lord Gerald said that he met 
him that afternoon on some business, and that 
while they were engaged Richard suddenly 
choked, and then would have fallen if they 
hadn't caught him. They couldn't stop the 
bleeding all night. Oh, what shall I do 1 " 

I comforted her. I told her that her troubles 
were nearly at an end. Now that I knew the 
worst of it, and could see that it was true, I 
felt happier than ever in my life before. 

She took me in to see him. He lay like a dead 
man, staring black-and-white. I thought he 
was dead — but the doctor, an English doctor, 
said that he was still alive. Looking atten- 
tively, I could see that he did breathe — but so 
short, so quick, so incredibly light a breath; 
you would have said it could not maintain a 
gnat in life. He was dreadfully thin, and 
looked as if his soul was in pain. There was a 
stretched, famished grin upon him. His chin 
was thrust up — and his black beard stood out 


THE SPRING 


285 


like a bush. I thought that inside that wrecked, 
empty tenement of his his dark mind was fight- 
ing busily, breathlessly for a way out — a shift 
which even at this last hour might save him for 
his whim’s sake. I wished at that moment for 
nothing so much as that he might find peace 
before he died. 

Where my girl stood, beautiful in her pity 
and grief, a man came tiptoe, and whispered to 
her. I hadn’t heard him come in. She came 
over to me and told me that Gerald Gorges was 
below. Would I go and see him? So I left 
her and went downstairs. 

There was Antinous, as we used to call him — 
but a changed young man. In fact, he was now 
a man. 

He came to me with his hand out. “Mr. 
Whitworth? We have met, I think, in happier 
circumstances. I am thankful that you are 
here, for that poor lady’s sake. This has been 
a dreadful shock — but I must not keep you. I 
came to enquire.” 

I told him, “There’s no hope. He may go 
at any minute.” Lord Gerald had no demean- 
our left. I saw that his eyes were full. 

“Do you think I could see him? I must ex- 
plain the whole thing. Nothing so dreadful has 


286 


MAINWARINGr 


ever happened to me before. But I mustn’t 
keep you. Only, if I might see him — on the 
chance of his recovering consciousness — it 
would mean very much to me.” 

I said, “I don’t think it could possibly hurt. 
I don’t think anybody could make a differ- 
ence — ” 

He looked alarmed. “To her, you know?” 

I said, “Let’s go up. I’ll ask her. I’ll tell 
her what you say.” We went up together. 

There were the doctor, a woman — nun, I 
think — and Lizzy. Lizzy had her hands clasped 
round a pillar of the bed. I told her that 
Gorges was in the passage. “He hopes to be 
recognized. He is unhappy. I think they 
would both be happier if it could be so. There 
is always a chance at the last. ’ ’ 

She nodded. “Yes, oh, yes. Anything to 
make him quiet at the last.” 

I beckoned him in. He came on the tips of his 
toes and stood by the bed. He was shocked by 
Mainwaring’s horrible, noiseless struggle. His 
lips moved. I thought the young man was 
praying. I was. I am sure Lizzy was. The 
nun was, on her knees. The doctor whispered 
to me — “I should get a priest, if I were you.” 

“He’s a protestant.” 


THE SPRING 


287 


“What does that matter? Even protestants 
want to die easy.” I sent the porter out in a 
cab to get the English chaplain. 

He came in abont twenty minutes, fixed up 
his altar, lit his candles and consecrated his 
wafer. He dipped it in the wine and put it be- 
tween Mainwaring ’s writhen lips. Wine or 
sacrament, it moved him. He gave a long, shud- 
dering moan, and opened his eyes. He saw 
Lizzy, he saw me ; he looked up and saw Gorges. 
The young man sobbed, and touched Mainwaring 
with his hand. A flicker of a smile passed over 
him — it was like a child sighing, so light it was. 
Then his head moved. He turned his cheek to 
the pillow ; his mouth opened a little. He sighed 
once. That was the end of him. Gerald 
Gorges was on his knees by the bed; the priest 
prayed on, commended his soul; Lizzy and I 
knelt side by side. 

I left Lizzy and the nun to their ministrations, 
and went downstairs with Gerald Gorges. He 
told me all about it. A horrible story it was, 
too. 

Mainwaring called to see him at the Embassy, 
and insulted him grossly before one of his sec- 
retaries. He insisted on a meeting that after- 
noon, and in such a way that Gorges felt he 


288 


MAINWAKINGr 


could not refuse. “I named a friend of mine; 
the poor chap mentioned Lob joy — a French- 
man whom he had brought with him for the 
purpose. A man of bad reputation. I knew all 
about him. I could not well refuse — in fact, it 
was impossible. And I own to you — you are 
entitled to know all — that I had brought it on 
myself, and on him — he being what he was. I 
had told Lady Whitehaven — I had begged her 
as a favour to me not to take him on a yacht- 
ing cruise. I wrote strongly — I believed that 
she had given me the right. Well, well — I am 
punished — there ’s an end of what ought never 
to have begun. But all that being so, I felt 
that Mainwaring was entitled to have a shot at 
me. I need not tell you, I hope, that nothing 
would have induced me to take an aim. But 
if he felt that he must shoot me — I don’t think 
I could have refused him. 

“Well, we met in the park here, and stood 
up. He had brought the pistols. I had none 
of my own. We stood up, and the signal was 
given. I fired into the ground. I saw Main- 
waring lift his arm. His elbow was bent. He 
aimed, not at me. He aimed at himself. At 
that moment he had a sort of shudder. The 


THE SPEING 


289 


thing went off over his head. He stood strang- 
ling ; he grew livid. Then he dropped his pistol 
and clapped both his hands to his mouth. I 
saw the blood cover them. We had a doctor 
with us — we caught him. But he never ral- 
lied.” He stopped there — but began again 
when he had conquered himself. 

‘ ‘ That unhappy, gentle lady ! I had to think 
of her. I had not had the slightest notion that 
he was a married man. If I had known that I 
don’t know that anything of this need have 
happened. Lady Whitehaven, too — ” 

“She knew it,” I said, thinking he had better 
have everything before him. 

“You blame me, I have no doubt; and I am 
very much to blame. I don’t defend myself — 
nor accuse the dead. I can only thank God 
that by some miracle of mercy he knew me, 
and understood. If it is any consolation to 
you — as I think it was to him to be able to dis- 
cern it in my heart — I shall never see Lady 
Whitehaven again.” 

I said, “Lord Gerald, don’t say that. She 
has had more to bear than perhaps you know.” 

He said, “We must all bear what we have 
earned. But she and I had better bear our 


290 MAINWARING 

burdens alone. We may meet again some day 
— but not while I remember Mainwaring. ’ ’ 
Then he broke out — “What a man! God for- 
give me for saying so — Not a man, but a 
devil.” 

“No,” I said. “Not a devil, but a child.” 


XXIV, 


HAVEN 

T HE formalities were put through by 
Gorges’ influence. Mainwaring lies bur- 
ied in protestant ground in the cemetery 
called Ingles. We put upon the headstone his 
name and, ultimately, when we knew it, his age. 
He was forty-seven. At Culgaith, in that drab 
town littered on two hillsides, they gave him a 
monument, which told lies. It called him Presi- 
dent of the Board of Trade, and “ Friend of the 
Poor” — neither of which offices did he ever 
serve. But they didn’t know that. In Madrid 
he is recorded as his parents named him. All 
that done, I took Lizzy home to London, and 
as soon as might be saw her into the train for 
her native place. We were very quiet in each 
other’s company in those early days, but very 
peaceful, seeing clear sky and happiness ahead 
of us. I set to work to unravel and wind up 
Mainwaring ’s affairs. 

He had made me sole executor and Lizzy sole 
beneficiary, and left some £3,000, the remains of 

291 


292 


MAINWAKINGr 


the damages he had had from Copestake. 
When I came to deal with his debts I soon saw 
that there would be much less than nothing for 
her. He seems to have owed money for every- 
thing he had had, and ever since he had begun 
to have anything. There was nothing, however, 
due for the household. Lizzy had seen to that. 
His principal creditor was the Duchess of 
Leven, whom it was my duty to see. 

This lady began by saying that she had no 
notion what she had lent him. “He used to 
come to me like a bear with a sore head, and I 
knew what that meant. I had no use for him 
at all in such a state — so I used to ask him 
what it meant this time. I have his I.O.TJ’s 
somewhere. If you insist upon it, I’ll have 
them looked up. I suppose they come to a good 
deal. He had less idea of money than I have — 
other people ’s money, I mean. He had none of 
his own.” 

I told her that I thought I must insist upon 
it. “There’s the will to carry out. And you 
know that he has left a widow.” 

“I know, I know,” she said. “Beautiful 
gel. She was a housemaid, wasn’t she? That 
was why he kept quiet about it, I suppose — 
though Heaven knows what difference it would 


HAVEN 


293 


have made if she had carried it about on sand- 
wich-boards. I should have gone to see her if 
I had known — and asked her here. I daresay; 
she wouldn’t have come — if she was wise.” 

“She is wise, Duchess.” 

“Ah. I fancy they are, you know. And 
have their pride. She was maid in his house, 
wasn’t she? Do you know? I admire her for 
that.” 

“So do I,” I said. 

She gave me a quick glance — just there and 
back. “My sis knew it all.” 

“Yes, indeed,” I said. The Duchess threw 
her hands out. 

“Why on earth — ! Molly, you know, my 
niece, knew nothing about it. A sad business. 
She took it badly. They don’t speak about it 
now — but poor dear Bose had to grovel. And 
now there’s Gerald Gorges!” She shook her 
head. “Bose’s mistake was to put too much 
heart into those things. She is cut to pieces. 
You ought to go and see her.” 

“Ah,” I said, “I won’t do that. I have 
nothing to tell her.” 

“No, what can one say? She put too much 
heart into it — lent herself to assumptions — The 
Fenian assumed everything — so he had what 


294 


MAIN W ARIN G 


there was ! Then she fell in with Gerald 
Gorges. I always hated that young man. 
Bless you, she had enough heart for a dozen of 
them — always had. But with them it was sole 
ownership. My poor Rose ! Oh, well, don ’t let 
us talk about it. Thank heaven, nobody has 
ever assumed me.” 

Then I begged once more for the documents, 
and was promised them. She summed up 
Mainwaring neatly, I thought. 

“He was the best of company when he chose. 
But the whole thing was blague from beginning 
to end. He bluffed the poor, he bluffed the 
Government ; he bluffed my poor sister ; and he 
bluffed God. Until he got tiresome. Then the 
Authorities just blew him away. You can’t 
bluff lung-disease.” 

I said, “Very true. He over-reached him- 
self there. But he had audacity enough to 
carry him through this world. He told me when 
he was on his sick-bed here that if he had had 
ten years more he would have been Prime Minis- 
ter.” 

The Duchess opened her eyes. “Why not? 
Bentivoglio has been Prime Minister — why not 
Mainwaring?” 

He owed her seven thousand pounds, and 


HAVEN 


295 


the whole of his debts amounted to twelve thou- 
sand. Now I had to think how I was to clear the 
estate. 

I didn’t think; I knew; I just did it. It took 
the whole of my small fortune except about 
three thousand; but with that in the funds and 
Lizzy’s three, I knew we should be rich enough, 
with what I could earn. For my intention was 
to become a hireling, and live abreast of her, 
close to the ground, since neither of us was for 
the heights. With that in my mind, and with 
my hope in my heart, I went down to West Mer- 
row, and saw Lizzy on the little platform shad- 
ing her eyes from the sun. Her eyes told her 
greeting. We did not so much as touch hands. 

The village strayed from the station to the 
sea — a half-circle of white, thatched cottages 
about a green; a flint-and-stone church deeply 
sunk in its own dead, bowered in trees ; a coast- 
guard station on a green cliff fronting the sea ; a 
flagstaff, much linen hanging out in the wind; 
a villa or two ; a scent of hawthorn over all. 

Lizzy’s people lived in half a thatched cot- 
tage, whose roof ran in one long slope at the 
back from ridge to ground. Inside, it was dark, 
low-roofed, full of odds and ends, but intensely 
clean. Her mother, a little woman, spectacled 


296 


MAINWARING 


and pale, came to meet me. She curtseyed and 
called me i i Sir. ’ ’ A tall young sister in a pina- 
fore was there, dark-haired like Lizzy, high- 
coloured, already a beauty. I wondered where 
the family good-looks came from, and found out 
afterwards it <vas from the father’s side. He 
was out at work, but came in at twelve-o’clock 
dinner. With him came yet another sister, 
from school Mr. Mathews was a man of fifty, 
who looked older. A silent, grave-eyed man, 
taking much for granted, including, I was glad 
to find, my sir-hood. In conversation he 
omitted it. The children said nothing at all; 
but there was no trouble with the old people 
when once the thing was set afoot. Lizzy, poor 
girl, couldn’t find her tongue. But it was quite 
enough for me to see her. Her colour had come 
back; she glowed like a nectarine. Her cheeks 
were fuller; her curves more ample. Rest and 
certainty had done their beneficent work. 

We went out and down to the sea-shore after 
dinner. It was a windless, calm, and perfect 
June day. She was shy, would not look at me, 
or talk but in guarded commonplace. But I 
didn’t care. 

I told her that everything was done — except 


HAVEN 


297 


one thing. “You don’t owe sixpence in the 
world, Lizzy. You have a hundred and fifty 
pounds a year, and so have I. So I can come 
to you without pretences.” When this became 
clear to her she was startled. “I don’t under- 
stand. You must tell me everything. I must 
know what you have done.” I knew that she 
must. 

So I told her that I had all the papers for her 
to see when she pleased ; and then put the case 
from my point of view. I said that since we 
had decided to make a joint-affair of life we 
ought to share the responsibilities as well as 
the profits of it. I reminded her that long ago 
when I had helped her, it had been on the ground 
that it was better to stand indebted to a friend 
than a lodging-house keeper. But there was 
another thing to remember, which was that she 
had tried living out of her world and found that 
she could not. By what I had done I had put 
myself into her world, and did not propose to 
leave it. It seemed true, I said, that her 
world was the right one for sensible people, 
since it gave you full scope for essential things 
and little scope for unessential. Anyhow, I 
loved her, and saw no chance of being happy 
without her. 


298 


MAIN WARING 


She made no answer. I conld see that she 
was greatly concerned. She sat playing idly 
with the pebbles, frowning, biting her lip. Her 
breath came short, too. I waited, my future in 
her hands. Presently, as she said nothing, I 
took one of them and kissed it. Then she broke 
out: 

“It isn’t right. It can’t be. I should have 
been happier if you had left it — I would have 
paid it off — ” Her voice faded out. “Twelve 
thousand pounds ! ’ ’ 

“Dearest, you shall pay it off. You shall 
pay it to me, and my children. ’ ’ She grew red 
— I saw her eyes shining through tears. 

“I can give you nothing in return.” 

“You can give me what I have longed for for 
four years, Lizzy.” 

‘ 4 But what will you do ? ” 

“I shall work, and love. What else am I 
here for ? ’ ’ She looked at me, divinely smiling. 

“I can do that, too.” 

“We’ll do it together, Lizzy.” She looked 
round about her. So did I. And then I asked 
her to kiss me ; and she did. 


THE END 


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